Attendance and participation (5 points per day, 220 points total)
Much of the integrative learning that occurs in this class comes from lecture, activities, and discussions in-class. Attendance is a necessary component of the course experience. Consequently, daily attendance will be taken via a single canvas quiz at a random time during the class period.
Students are allowed five free absences without any penalty to their grade. When an emergency, illness or other events arise, you do not need to let me know when you want to use one of your free days, just know I will apply your free days to the missed day. In order to avoid penalty beyond the five days, you will need formal accommodations from the
Disability Resource Center (DRC). Please reach out to them if you experience something that would lead to missing more than 5 days. In the event class is canceled, you will automatically get credit for that day.
Weekly Discussion (10 points each, 140 points total)
Discussions provide an opportunity to think critically about the material, what you are learning, share with your peers, and learn from their ideas. Each week a discussion question related to the reading and/or lectures will be posted on Canvas. You are expected to respond with a minimum of four sentences and then respond substantially to at least two other posts. Your post is worth up to 5 points, and each comment is worth 2.5 points. Practice utilizing professional language, appropriate punctuation and grammar, and in-text citations where necessary.
Reading Quizzes (10 points each, 120 points total)
Due each Wednesday. Quizzes help hold you to stay on schedule with the reading. Each quiz will have 5 objective questions (ie multiple choice, matching, or true/false). Quizzes are time limited to ten minutes but can be taken two times, and Canvas will save your higher score. At the end of the semester, I will drop the lowest two quiz scores. Quizzes are open note and open book.
SW Professional Speaker Quizzes (10 points each, 130 points total)
Exposure to licensed social workers in the field is one of the best ways to offer you an introduction to the field of social work. Every Friday we will have a guest speaker that is prerecorded so that I can introduce you to social workers across the US. Every Friday (with the exception of the first week of the semester) you will attend the lecture asynchronously which means you do not need to come to class on Friday.
We will be using Anotto technology for the guest speaker videos. 5 quiz questions (2 pts each) are built into the video and will pause at random times throughout the video to "quiz" you about what you just heard. These questions will be straight forward and aimed at assessing whether or not you watched the video.
Tips for Using Anotto:
- Use Chrome for your browser
- You may always rewind, but you cannot fast forward
- Be sure to hit "submit" (lower right corner) of the screen
Guest Speaker Information Covered in the Videos:
- Career path
- The population they work with
- The route they took into social work
- Social justice issues they face in their career
- Social welfare programs they intersect with.
- Ethical issues they face in their career.
Macro Social Work Career Group Presentation (50 points total)
In week 5, we will learn about macro social work from each other in group presentations. Social workers must learn to work alongside others and practice networking with other professionals, which is why this is a group assignment. Please create a powerpoint presentation with the below components and present to the class (sign ups will occur in week 2). Each member needs to speak during the presentation. Your presentation will need to be 10 mins and no longer to ensure everyone has time to present.
Tasks:
- Choose one career path option for social workers who want to work at the macro level of social work.
- Explain this career path including a job description, duties, earning potential, etc.
- Differentiate macro-level social work from micro- and mezzo-level social work by stating who the “client” is, who the social workers colleagues are, etc.
- Summarize the skills that are needed to engage in this career
- Provide examples of social justice issues that this career path might encounter
- Summarize potential ethical dilemmas this career might encounter and what the social workers’ ethical obligations might be to engage in social and political action within this career choice
- Evaluate your own goodness of fit with macro-level social work practice as a potential future career option (each group member could take less than a minute to state how they see themselves fitting within this career path)
Midterm Critical Thinking Paper (50 points)
This assignment is about learning to think critically which is a foundational skill for this course and future related study. To complete this assignment, please take any topic you read in your required readings and/or a topic discussed in class, and think critically about it. An example could be the topic of substance use. You may be exposed to ideas that challenge your previous perspectives on why folks use substances. You could critically explain your thoughts on the debate of whether substance use is a disease or not. You want to explain information and possibly research/theories about substance use itself and then share your analysis of this information and what you think to be true.
Your paper should be at least 2 pages and no more than 5 pages. In order to successfully complete this assignment in 2 pages, you must be very articulate and thoughtful about how you present the information. Please follow the directions below and refer to the grading rubric for full credit for this assignment.
Final Project References (25 points)
For your final project (see below), students are required to have 4 references. At least 2 of them must be from academic sources such as a textbook or journal article. In order to support you in building a project based off suitable academic resources, students will submit their references via canvas and will be approved by your instructor. Use APA format in submitting your references.
Final Project (140 points)
In lieu of a comprehensive final exam, there will be a research project that will be shared with the class within Canvas. You will find it under the Final Project Module.
For this project, you will do the following:
- Choose either a social welfare agency, a social policy, or an aspect of social work history.
- Explain the following:
- What your topic is
- Why it is of interest to you
- How ethics are relevant to what you are researching,
- How the topic you are researching interfaces with the other two options for research (for example, if you research a social policy, how is that policy impacted by social work history and how will it impact social welfare agencies).
- Please include at least 4 references 2 of which must be academic sources (peer reviewed journal articles or textbooks) using APA 7 formatting.
- You may use any format to present your project such as a PowerPoint, a video, graphic, etc. as long you include the required information.
- In addition to posting your own project, please review and comment on at least 5 other projects.
Extra Credit - Complete Your Course Evaluation (25 points)
This is a huge make-up credit opportunity for you. It could replace at least 2 discussions, reading quizzes or guest speaker papers. Feedback on the course helps me become a better instructor. Please complete the course evaluation during the period specified on Canvas and upload evidence (a screen shot) of its completion (not the actual evaluation).