#BPD2014 Presentation on Teaching Professional Social Work Skills with Twitter

Posted By Laurel Hitchcock on Mar 20, 2014

I am attending the 2014 annual meeting for the Association of Baccalaureate Social Work Program Directors in Louisville, KY. Today is Day 1 of the conference for me, and I’m presenting with Dr. Jimmy Young of the University of Nebraska at Kearney (@Jimmysw) about using Twitter in the classroom.  We presented this information at CSWE’s annual program meeting back in October, and the purpose of this post is to provide supplemental information for today’s presentation.  If you are attending the conference, please join us in Room Kentucky D at 11:15 AM in the conference venue.  Or follow our live demo on Twitter starting at 11:45 AM EST with the hashtag #swktweets.  

Using Storify in the Classroom: A Student’s Perspective from Natalie Savoy

Posted By Laurel Hitchcock on Mar 10, 2014

MSW Student Natalie Savoy

Back in January, Dr. Jamie Mitchell from Wayne State University wrote about an assignment for her Human Behavior in the Social Environment Theory class that incorporated Storify, a social media platform that allows users to curate a digital narrative about any topic.  The assignment required students to articulate how a theory of their choosing could be applied to a real-world, under-served population or problem of interest using Storify.  As a follow-up to Dr. Mitchell’s post, I asked one her MSW students, Natalie Savoy, to share her thoughts on the assignment, what it was like to use social media in the classroom and how social media might be incorporated in her future role as a social worker.  Here are Natalie’s responses to my questions:

What was your initial reaction to using social media for an assignment in your Human Behavior in the Social Environment Theory course?

Podcasting for Social Work Students, Part 3 – Advice for designing the assignment from Jonathan Singer

Posted By Laurel Hitchcock on Feb 14, 2014

One of the experts in social work podcasting is Jonathan Singer who runs the Social Work Podcast.  He has been podcasting since 2007, and the goal of his work is to disseminate research by and for social workers to improve their practice and outcomes for clients.  I spoke with Jonathan about his thoughts on working with students to develop their own podcasts and he recommended educators considering the following three points as they develop podcast assignments:

Podcasting for Social Work Students, Part 2 – Why use podcasting in the classroom

Posted By Laurel Hitchcock on Jan 31, 2014

In my last post, I shared the basic mechanics of a podcasting assignment that has been a regular in my BSW marco-level practice course since 2011.  While the post gives details about how such an assignment could be structured, it doesn’t really address why  an educator would want to add a podcast assignment to their course?  Changing assignments and adding technology to the classroom can be very challenging and sometimes involves a steep learning curve for the instructor and the students.

Podcasting for Social Work Students, Part 1 – Describing the Assignment

Posted By Laurel Hitchcock on Jan 16, 2014

One of my favorite technology-based assignments is the student-created podcast in my BSW macro social work class.  My motivation for this assignment originated several years ago from a very selfish desire to grade something beside another written research paper.   I was not looking to eliminate writing from my courses or minimize its importance for college students and professional social workers.  I wanted another way meet the needs of an organizational assessment assignment that was engaging and challenging for the students (and for me) in a course that already had two major writing assignments.  The idea for a podcast assignment came from a colleague in the English Department who asked students in introductory writing classes to create a podcast instead of a paper and then write a self-reflection about the process.  He contended that the students had to complete the same amount of research and apply the same critical thinking skills to complete the podcast as writing a paper.  He convinced me to try it, arguing if the assignment bombed I could easily go back to a written paper and quietly ignore any comments on my student evaluations.  Seven semesters later, podcasts have become an integral assignment in my course.