ABSTRACT

The curriculums of social work education are traditionally divided, with professional and theoretical knowledge taught largely in the classrooms of academia, whilst practical skills and experience are developed mostly in workplace settings. This paper locates simulation in Lev Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory and Paulo Freire’s pedagogy, considering its potential to offer social work education a third place, complementary to, yet unique and distinct from the first place of academy and the second place of placement. The authors present findings from the first stage of their evaluation of the introduction of simulation to social work curriculums at a UK university. Narrative responses are presented across six, overarching themes: the pedagogical approach; authenticity; engineered failure; applying theory in practice; developing practice skills; reflection and feedback. The data demonstrates that respondents valued opportunities for deliberate practice which enabled them to experience emotional responses and learn from their mistakes without negative consequence. Although these findings predate COVID 19, they are ever-more relevant as social work education reconsiders how to reach, teach, and engage social work students during the pandemic and beyond.

摘要

社会工作教育的课程传统上是分开的，专业和理论知识主要在学术界的课堂上教授，而实践技能和经验主要在工作场所中培养。本文将模拟定位在列夫·维果茨基的社会文化理论和保罗·弗莱雷的教育学中，考虑到模拟具有提供社会工作教育第三位的潜力，与学院的第一位和安置的第二位互补，但又独特且不同。作者展示了他们对英国一所大学将模拟引入社会工作课程进行评估的第一阶段的结果。叙述性回应分为六个总体主题：教学方法；真实性；人为造成的故障；将理论应用于实践；培养实践技能；反思和反馈。数据表明，受访者重视刻意练习的机会，这使他们能够体验情绪反应并从错误中吸取教训，而不会产生负面后果。尽管这些发现早于 COVID 19，但随着社会工作教育重新考虑如何在大流行期间及之后接触、教授和吸引社会工作学生，它们变得更加重要。