Trends in higher education in Canada and implications for social work education

A proposal for inquiry of network and challenge-based learning in social work education

“…Alm (2015) uses the concept of isomorphism, corresponding, in everyday terms, to adaptation and interpretation, to discuss professional traditions. As a result of the increased professionalization, both educational and social service activities can be understood on the basis of normative isomorphism and the social matrix of collective knowledge (Alm, 2015;Regehr, 2013;Wenger, 2000). This means that the activities, through similar education and a common network, risk limiting and standardising the approach and become an object for narrow knowledge management, operating within predefined frameworks.…”

“…However, academic pedagogic activity, from a postmodernist perspective, is not only considered as a source of knowledge, but also as the origins of developing our view of knowledge (Göppner and Hämäläinen, 2007;Jovchelovitch, 2007). As a result, some social work scholarships efforts focus on understanding the impact current educational policies (Regehr, 2013), and curriculum management have on student's success in academic engagement (Cartney, 2010;Drisko, 2014). Other address rules structuring the interaction between professionals and clients (Englander and Folkesson, 2014), understanding of a broader cultural norm that view the professional as an authority figure (Blom and Morén, 2010), or employ counter-narrative to "story" a case (Kohler Reissman and Quinney, 2015).…”

Do university students, alumni, educators and employers link assessment and graduate employability?

“…In contemporary higher education, the three concepts of graduate employability, assessment and learning are linked and interwoven (Dahlgren, Reid, Dahlgren, & Petocz, 2008;Nixon & Williams, 2014;Regehr, 2013;Smith & Worsfold, 2015;von Konsky & Oliver, 2012).…”

The Inside Story: A Survey of Social Work Students' Supervision and Learning Opportunities on Placement

“…The result of the considerable pressure on the practice community to educate and supervise more students, without additional resources or reductions in workloads (Muskat et al, 2012) has seen the appearance of newer models of supervision, including group supervision and a rotational model where students are placed in one agency but rotate between two or three related areas, each with different supervisors (Bogo, 2006;Regehr, 2013). This latter model requires more research on the educational outcomes as current studies are quite narrow, lack control groups and are limited to a few fields of practice (Gough and Wilks, 2010).…”

“…In Australia, the current and projected shortages in the health and human service sectors have activated Commonwealth and State government initiatives to increase the number of undergraduate students and to build capacity in the field to offer quality placements. Similarly, in Canada, the number of universities offering both undergraduate and graduate social work programs is increasing (Regehr, 2013;Bogo, 2006).…”