Abstract
There is a movement sweeping across educational settings and social service programs alike. Although it manifests in a variety of names, it can more generically be described as the outcomes based movement. It is a movement that, when fully implemented in social work educational settings, requires that each instructor goosesteps backwards from learning outcomes to learning activities, ensuring that each component in a course is aligned in lockstep fashion. In social work, we are expected to critically reflect upon what we do and how our actions are congruent with our social work values. We are expected to question received truths. At the same time, as Stoller (2015) notes: Over the last 20 years, the use of definable and measurable learning outcomes has increasingly become a requirement for justifying curricular and pedagogical practices. To suggest the opposite…would be to appear on the wrong side of logic: as anti-transparency, anti-science and anti-growth. (p. 317) Implicit in the hegemony of the learning outcomes movement (LOM) is an underlying distrust of the ability of educators. There is an attempt to control through standardization, what is a complex, contextual, and creative educational project, producing a well-oiled and efficient educational machine. This presentation serves to disrupt the values neutral appearance of the LOM. We will compare and contrast the (LOM) with other curriculum approaches.
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Curriculum, Outcomes, Critique
