VCU School of Social Work

by Dr. David Stoesz, Professor

Think of it as earning 3-credits for taking a field trip everyday for a week....well, not quite, there were readings and papers to do....but the DC In-Residence Course was an opportunity to move from the traditional classroom-based instructional model to one that immersed students in the real-world of policy research and advocacy. Taking its lead from international courses in which students spend 1-2 weeks examining social work and experiencing the culture of another country, this course exposed individuals to the work and culture of "policy-wonks" in our nation's capital.

In the first week of June seven graduate students toured ten think tanks and advocacy organizations as the inauguration of the first Washington, DC In-Residence Course. The course, taught by Dr. David Stoesz, acquainted social work students from both VCU campuses as well as the University of Maryland with some of the most prominent policy institutions in the nation's capital. Each day began with a seminar followed by a de-briefing over lunch at venues such as the National Gallery of Art and Union Station, followed by an afternoon seminar and a subsequent de-briefing.

The seminars included such luminaries as,

Alan Houseman, Executive Director of the Center of Law and Social Policy and member of the Obama transition team,
Sarina Fogel, head lobbyist for Families USA who took time off from working Congressional Offices during the debate
on health reform,
MaryLee Allen, long-time analyst and advocate at the Children's Defense Fund,
Sheila Crowley, VCU School of Social Work PhD alumna and recent honoree for her work as chief of the National Low-Income Housing Coalition,
Michele Derr, a researcher at Mathematica Research and a NoVA adjunct instructor,
Ariane Hegewisch, a researcher at the Institute for Women's Policy Research,
Bob Moffitt, lead health care analyst at the Heritage Foundation,
Bob Woodson, social worker and recipient of a MacArthur "genius award" for his work in gang prevention,
Erik Assadourian, analyst at the Worldwatch Institute, and,
Michael Stoop, director of the National Coalition of the Homeless.

During the week's seminars, students reviewed web-sites and read policy monographs in order to dialogue with seminar leaders. Subsequently, students prepared policy logs about specific legislation that animated discussion during the seminars. Students were enthusiastic about this learning opportunity, making such comments as, "informative and mind expanding;" and, "this was an excellent opportunity and it exposed me to another avenue for future employment as a social worker."

As a trial, the course was a decided success and may be offered in the future. If you have questions or suggestions about the course contact David Stoesz at dstoesz@vcu.edu.

Kia J. Bentley, Professor and Director of the Ph.D. Program
Member, VCU's Center for Teaching Excellence Advisory Council

For many years in the late 1990's, around eight faculty here at the School of Social Work gathered every month under the leadership of Dr. Joe Walsh to share experiences in the classroom, both our successes in reaching students and, well, the other attempts. Sometimes we read articles together; sometimes we shared handouts; once we brought in a provocative speaker; but mostly we told teaching stories. The stories were about things like student self-disclosures, grade inflation, building trust and safety, managing content versus process, and nurturing critical and reflective thinking. There were no written goals or strategic plans for the group, no annual reports due on our activities. Indeed, no one told us we had to meet. We wanted to. Teaching was clearly central to our respective identities and all of us wanted to not just be competent, we wanted to be inspirational. We all aspired to facilitate learning transformations in our BSW, MSW and Ph.D. students, and the group helped us with that. At the time, we were only semi-cognizant of the fact that we were what had come to be called a "teaching circle," or now called a "learning community." There was a bigger picture about what we were doing.

Now a decade later, VCU's Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE) has taken the idea of teaching circles and communities to a new level, sponsoring numerous interdisciplinary groups across campus. They describe their "faculty learning communities" (FLCs) as a place where "immersion," prolonged exploration," and "active, collaborative, and self-guided exploration" of an issue can happen. Each FLC has unstructured, informal dimensions, yet the CTE also has expectations about outcomes and products. The explicit goal of an FLC is for participants to improve their own teaching practices but also improve teaching across the University by disseminating what is learned with wider audiences. For several years, participants were given an honoraria of $1,000 to spend toward group and individual projects, teaching materials or other products.

Julie Jesmer Osgood, MSW, 2nd Year Ph.D. Student

Innovative technology is often used in educational environments as a teaching tool. In an environment where the student frequently is more comfortable with technology than the teacher, choosing to utilize technological innovations can be a blessing or a curse. My experiences as both a learner, and a teacher using Wiki spaces in the classroom environment, are discussed in this article.

"A wiki is a page, or collection of Web pages, designed to enable anyone who accesses it to contribute or modify content using a simplified markup language. Wikis are often used to create collaborative websites and to power community websites." In other words, a wiki is a virtual content management platform where anyone accessing the content can upload, modify and exchange documents and files. The best known wiki is our old academically challenged friend, Wikipedia. Information on Wikipedia can be viewed and modified by any user, with or without knowledge or credentials. The same is true for all wikis. Given their reputation, one might wonder how they could be used as an effective teaching innovation.

The optimal benefit of using a wiki for classroom education is the ability to facilitate and document collaboration among class members. Wikis can be used as an effective collaboration tool, but as with any new technology, the benefits need to be weighed against the potential problems that may present in the educational environment. To that end, I have identified several pros and cons in my work with wiki spaces in the classroom, and include suggestions about avoiding common pitfalls.