#APM19 – Evolving the Signature Pedagogy with the Social Media Toolkit for Field Educators
On October 27, 2019 at 8:45 AM, during the Annual Program Meeting for the Council on Social Work Education in Denver CO, Mary Jacque Carroll, Allison M. Curington, Robyn V. Snider and I will be presenting on information and tools that field directors can use to guide curricular development and assessment strategies around interprofessional communication with digital and social technologies. If you are still in Denver, please come find us in Governor’s Square 11 – Plaza Building of the conference hotel. We’ll also be sharing how you can develop your own professional social media policies to support communication with students and field agencies as well as how to create activities for students in field to increase understanding of the ethical use of social and digital media in social work practice.
You’ll also learn how to access the Social Media Toolkit for Field Educators, a free resource with educator’s guide and a PowerPoint slide deck.
For those of you who cannot make the presentation, we are including the details in this blog post.
First, you can access the slides here:
Second, we will be sharing one handout, which you can download here:
Finally, here is our conference proposal:
While social media are a topic of conversation in many educational and practice arenas, social work professionals are often not engaged in the social media conversation loop and unclear about the influence of social media in the lives of 21st century employees and organizations. There are several reasons why social work educators and professionals are not having these conversations or engaging with social and digital technologies. These include generational differences, lack of technology resources, lack of training with technology (technological competency), lack of best practice guidelines or organizational/institution policy and ethical concerns (Brady, McLeod, & Young, 2015; Goldkind & Wolf, 2015; Kimball & Kim, 2013).
Field Directors are in a precarious position when it comes to navigating discourse on social and digital media. The traditional role of Field Directors/field office is to liaison between the educational institution and the practice world. While this role has always been tenuous in balancing the competing demands of entities, best practice and slow changing systems have been the foundation for field directors. Most difficult for field educators is the lack of best practice clarity and the rapidly changing context of social and digital media (Sage & Sage, 2015). In addition, field directors are being faced with many ethical challenges presented by student’s use of social media in field. Further, the social work literature and professional social work organizations have been slow to provide updated guidance in the form of best practice and standards to help navigate (Berzin Singer & Chan, 2015; Hitchcock & Battista, 2012; NASW & ASWB, 2005).
Field Directors have an opportunity to begin to shape the professional landscape of social and digital media in social work and higher education. The role as liaison between the educational and practice realm places field directors in a position of influence in both policy development and practice. In order to maximize their role, field directors must first grapple with their own understanding of social media as it relates to ethics and social work practice. Field Directors also have an opportunity to develop best practice or policy for their institution, program or field office.
This workshop will provide both information and tools that field directors can use to help them begin to develop address the ethical and practical issues related to the use of social and digital media in field education. Specifically, the presenters will review how a field director can develop their own professional social media policy, and how to help with students and field supervisors on developing their own policies. Additionally, we will share examples of course and field activities that can be implemented with students to increase understanding of the professional and ethical use of social and digital media in social work practice, and provide participants access to the Social Media Toolkit for Field Educators, a free resource with educator’s guide and a PowerPoint slide deck. Finally, we will report on findings about student learning outcomes from an assignment from the Toolkit. The assignment requires students to assess their own social media use, reflect on their use, and then draft their own social media policy. A retrospective post assignment survey looked at students’ use of technology prior to the assignment, changes in their attitudes toward their use of technology after the assignment, and their thoughts about how the assignment contributed to their overall learning about technology for social work practice. Preliminary findings suggest that while the assignment may not change students’ attitudes toward technology in general, it did change how students perceived the role of technology for professional social work practice.
References:
Berzin, S. C., Singer, J. B., & Chan, C. (2015). Practice Innovation through Technology in the Digital Age: A Grand Challenge (Grand Challenges for Social Work Initiative, No. Working Paper No. 12). Cleveland, OH: American Academy of Social Work & Social Welfare. Retrieved from: http://aaswsw.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/WP11-with-cover.pdf
Brady, S. R., McLeod, D. A., & Young, J. A. (2015). Developing Ethical Guidelines for Creating Social Media Technology Policy in Social Work Classrooms. Advances in Social Work, 16(1), 43–54.
Goldkind, L., & Wolf, L. (2015). A digital environment approach: Four technologies that will disrupt social work practice. Social Work, 60(1), 85–87.
Hitchcock, L. I., & Battista, A. (2013). Social Media for Professional Practice: Integrating Twitter with Social Work Pedagogy. Journal of Baccalaureate Social Work, 18, 33–45.
Kimball, E., & Kim, J. (2013). Virtual Boundaries: Ethical Considerations for Use of Social Media in Social Work. Social Work, 58(2), 185–188.
National Association of Social Workers (2017). Standards for Technology and Social Work Practice. Retrieved from https://www.socialworkers.org/practice/standards/naswtechnologystandards.pdf
Sage, M., & Sage, T. (2015). Social media and E-professionalism in child welfare: Policy and practice. Journal of Public Child Welfare, 1–17.
How to Cite this Blog Post:
Carroll, M.J., Curington, A.M. Snider, R.V. & Hitchcock, L.I. (2019, October 24). #APM19 – Evolving the Signature Pedagogy with the Social Media Toolkit for Field Educators [Blog Post]. Retrieved from: https://laureliversonhitchcock.org/2019/10/22/apm19-evolving-the-signature-pedagogy-with-the-social-media-toolkit-for-field-educators/
