As social work educators, we create assignments to present our college students alternatives to be taught concerning the career and develop competencies wanted for social apply. Assignments additionally supply a solution to assess if college students are rising of their understanding of the way to be skilled social employees. Assignments can vary from studying a chapter within the course textbook to a 20-page analysis paper and extra. I’ve shared many assignments on this blog that I’ve utilized in numerous courses. What I’ve realized through the years is that it takes effort and construction to create a top quality task that can assist college students join what they’re studying within the classroom to their area expertise and past. On this weblog put up, I share my ideas on the way to construction an task that’s clear and contextualized for the social work career, utilizing three easy questions – Why?, What?, and How?
Why?
With this query, you are attempting to elucidate why college students want to do that task—explaining “the why” of an task provides college students an understanding of how the task matches into studying concerning the social work career and the way it matches into the course. You might be giving college students a normal sense of the challenge earlier than the small print whereas additionally serving to them perceive how this task will inform their future apply as social employees. To get began with drafting the why of an task, ask your self the next questions:
- What are the course targets or pupil studying outcomes?
- What are the social work competencies addressed by your course (take into consideration the competencies outlined by Council on Social Work Education [CSWE])?
- What are the social work values addressed in your course (take into consideration the Nationwide Affiliation of Social Employee’s Code of Ethics)?
- How does your course match into the general curriculum of the social work program?
Answering these questions on your course ought to assist you outline your causes for together with assignments as a part of your course. Not solely will this assist you clarify to college students why these assignments are vital, however additionally, you will uncover key phrases from the competencies or course targets that you could incorporate into your task’s goal assertion. Additionally, it is possible for you to so as to add a short reminder of what was beforehand realized within the course (or different programs) and the way the task builds on this content material. Lastly, you’ll want to write a short assertion concerning the studying targets for the task.
Right here is an instance from an infographic task I developed with colleagues :
Function:
This infographic task goals to assist college students apply advocacy & brokering expertise because it pertains to a human service difficulty and/or matter. College students are anticipated to create an infographic that gives statistics and/or details on a selected social downside.
Studying Targets:
By the top of this task, college students will be capable to:
- Create a fascinating infographic that gives consciousness and/or describes preventative measures associated to a selected matter
- Conduct analysis to determine statistics, assets, and different information related to a selected topic
- Improve skill to interpret and talk a social work matter
- Reveal communication and advocacy expertise by sharing and selling one’s infographic by way of social media
As you write the educational targets for the task, I like to recommend utilizing Bloom’s Taxonomy to determine motion phrases on your targets. Briefly, Bloom’s Taxonomy is a classification system for studying outcomes and is often utilized in larger schooling.
What?
Subsequent, you’ll want to clarify “the what” of the task, specializing in what the scholars will likely be doing for the task, and what they should do to finish it. Right here is the place I take into consideration the educational I need the scholars to display as a part of the task. I’ve discovered CSWE’s definition of holistic competence useful when contemplating what I need college students to achieve from an task. Particularly, CSWE acknowledges that social employees display their skilled competence with 4 dimensions – their information, expertise, values, and skill to suppose critically and mirror. When utilized to an task, I’ll think about every of the 4 dimensions with questions like these:
- Data – What content material do the scholars have to be taught, talk about, and so forth.? What do they want know they learn about a subject? Fashions, theories, or buildings?
- Abilities – What expertise do they should display? Strategies or strategies?
- Values – What core social work values hook up with this task? Service, Integrity,
- Cognitive and affective processes – How will essential pondering seem on this task? Crucial Reflection? How can this task assist college students develop skilled judgment?
Once more, Bloom’s Taxonomy and CSWE’s Social Work Competencies could be useful right here. Don’t be afraid of incorporating language or phrasing from these sources. You possibly can overview the educators’ assets on the CSWE’s web site. I prefer to “gather” social work assignments as fashions for myself. When acceptable, I acknowledge the useful resource, particular person, or group who impressed the task with a short observe on the finish or within the footnote.
Subsequent, I state (or re-state) the style of the task (i.e., paper, presentation, dialogue put up, examination, and so forth.) and provides some pointers for construction and formatting, resembling a web page or phrase restrict, sort of software program program to make use of, or writing fashion. After all, these pointers will differ by the kind of task. Right here is an instance from the identical infographic task:
Please use the next pointers when creating your infographic:
- Embody APA-style references and in-text citations to assist that data in your task.
- Use solely photos and different visible content material which can be within the public area.
- Apply the rule of three when choosing colours on your infographic.
- Choose fonts from the first classes of font households and stick with a font palette.
How?
For this query, I like to incorporate an inventory of all of the duties a pupil wants to finish in chronological order, which may also help them plan for the assignments. Please consider this as scaffolding, an academic approach that helps college students as they be taught new concepts or expertise. Briefly, scaffolding consists of modeling as the teacher, practising (both as a gaggle or individually), after which offering assets so the scholars can accomplish the task independently. For this instance, right here is the duty listing I present for the infographic task:
To finish this task, every pupil will do the next duties:
- Overview an infographic as a part of a category dialogue
- Overview the course assets about the way to create an infographic
- Establish the subject on your infographic
- Gather information and knowledge wanted for the infographic
- Create a draft infographic
- Get suggestions from a peer as a part of a category dialogue
- Revise and submit their closing infographic
- Share the infographic with others outdoors the category as acceptable
- Full the self-reflection journal about your studying
The objective right here is to draft a activity listing that helps college students suppose by the logical steps of an task with out micro-managing it for them. Two methods that assist with this embrace:
Tying the duties again to beforehand realized content material – For instance, when reviewing an exemplar infographic as a part of a category dialogue, I’ll typically choose an infographic a few matter that the scholars are already conversant in (i.e., a subject from a earlier course or one already coated in school). This helps to re-enforce the subject with the scholars and permits me to concentrate on the abilities of making an infographic somewhat than answering many questions on a brand new matter.
Giving college students as a lot selection as attainable – For instance, I choose that college students choose their very own matters for assignments when attainable. Different methods to present selection embrace letting college students choose the software program or web-based program they like to finish an task and design choices. As chances are you’ll already know, giving college students decisions associated to assignments helps a trauma-informed strategy to educating and gives college students alternatives to deepen their information a few matter of curiosity to them.
Lastly, I present data on how the task will likely be assessed. This helps the scholars perceive the task’s expectations and supplies transparency about how I grade. Rubrics are one in every of my favourite instruments for grading as I can use them with any task and share descriptions of the factors I will likely be utilizing to evaluate pupil work. You possibly can see an instance of the rubric used for this infographic task right here. Moreover, you would possibly need to think about using a meta rubric, which is a rubric on your task rubric. A meta rubric will assist you rapidly determine the place the task wants updates for the subsequent semester.
How do you give you assignments on your social work programs? I’m inquisitive about listening to about your processes and assignments. Please share within the remark part beneath.
How you can cite:
Hitchcock, L.I. (2023, January 26). Key Parts for Efficient Social Work Assignments. Educating and Studying in Social Work. https://laureliversonhitchcock.org/2023/01/26/key-components-for-effective-social-work-assignments/
