A review of Teaching & Learning in Social Work for 2020

Posted By Laurel Hitchcock on Jan 6, 2021

2020 was a strange year with many firsts for me – first global pandemic, first sabbatical, first live sessions in an online course, etc. Because of all these firsts, blogging took a bit of back seat to some of my other projects and goals for the year. I had four goals for the blog over the year, and some minor successes. They were:

#1 – Publish 30 posts – only published 19

#2 – Enhance the reach of the blog – there were almost 45,500 visitors from 153 different countries with each visitor spending an average of 1 minute on the blog.

#3 – Build a culture of engagement – only had 10 comments for the year.

#4 – Publish content in other places – there will be two articles in 2021 with content from the blog.

Outside of these goals, I did update content on the blog and created an archive page. The two most popular blog posts of 2020 were:

A Love Letter to Social Workers on the Front Lines of COVID-19 (4/10/20) by Melanie Sage with over 24,000 visits

The Power of Lighting in a Virtual Classroom: Tips on Improving Webcam Lighting for Online Educators (3/16/20) by Agata Dera with over 3,000 visits

Pinterest Assignment for the Social Work Classroom

Posted By Laurel Hitchcock on Sep 16, 2020

A few years back, my colleague, Dr. Lisa Baker at Samford University’s Department of Social Work, and I collaborated on a study about a technology-meditated assignment that we developed for a Human Behavior and the Social Environment (HBSE) course. Our goal was to breathe some new life into a stale assignment.  In this post, I want to share how we approached the development, assessment, and dissemination of our study related to this tech-mediated assignment.   

Professional Collaboration Networks for Social Work Practice

Posted By Laurel Hitchcock on Aug 26, 2020

In this post, I am outlining previously published content from this blog about the concept and practice of a Professional Collaboration Network (PCN), which are technology-mediated user-centered relationship constellations designed to enhance or enrich connections, knowledge, and professional opportunities. Using PCNs in social work practice started as an idea at a Think Tank hosted by the University at Buffalo’s School of Social Work in June 2019.  The Think Tank’s goal was to brainstorm how to teach students in their new online Doctorate of Social Program (DSW) program to develop critical stakeholder networks using digital and social technologies.  You will find a summary of each of the five original blog posts, along with a link to the full post. 

Virtual Volunteering for Social Work Education during COVID19

Posted By Laurel Hitchcock on Jul 22, 2020

Each semester, I teach courses with service learning requirements in our BSW program.  As many of you know, service learning combines volunteer work with critical reflection so that students can make connections between real-life experiences and their academic course work.  It is consider a high-impact educational practice in higher education and the pedagogical constructs embedded within service learning are a natural fit for social work education.  Many undergraduate social work programs require volunteer hours for admission into their professional social work programs.  At the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), our students volunteer for 20 hours as part of a semester-long, one-credit hour lab course, which is connected to a practice course.  While volunteering in community-based settings, our BSW students get experiences with different types of agencies, social problems, client populations, and activities that social workers do on a daily basis.  Then, they bring these experiences back into the classroom to deepen their understanding of generalist social work practice with individuals, groups and organizations.  Students take three service learning lab courses prior to their field semester, which gives them a grounding for what to expect during their field placement along with 60 hours of volunteer experience for their professional development and resume. 

In March 2020, the COVID19 pandemic disrupted our lives and how we teach our courses.  Within the span of a week, I had to shift over 100 students in our three service learning lab courses from doing in-person volunteering at five community locations in the Greater Birmingham area to doing virtual volunteer work. In this blog post, I want to share how I did this and offer resources for social work educators who also need virtual volunteer opportunities for their students. 

Tech-based Assignments for Remote Teaching & Learning in Social Work

Posted By Laurel Hitchcock on Mar 24, 2020

In social work education, we are all trying to figure out how to transition our students, instructors, field supervisors, and courses to remote learning (AKA online course delivery).  This is no small feat given that COVID-19 has affected all of us personally as well as professionally.  Myself, I have been working to create remote volunteering options for over 100 BSW students in three service learning courses (more on that later). 

Over the past few years, I have written about different types of technology-based assignments on this blog, and have asked several other social work educators to share their technology-based learning activities and experiences.  In this post, I am pulling together a list of technology-based assignments that you can use and adapt for your own needs during these strange times.