Twenty-sixth International Conference on Learning

Abstract

Many universities require that seniors complete a capstone course or similar culminating experience. This course was designed to help social work students integrate their classroom learning with their practicum experience. During the 10-week course, students completed three assignments on ethics, research, and policy. Students received feedback on each assignment and were encouraged to revise accordingly. The final assignment in the course was a poster presentation where students integrated content from the previous assignments. Forty-one students completed the capstone class in 2018. In order to evaluate the effectiveness of the course, three of the social work profession’s core competencies were assessed through the course assignments. Competencies were rated on a scale of one to five where a one represented unacceptable progress and a five represented advanced competence. Two competencies related to ethics were assessed. On the competencies “resolving ethical dilemmas using the Code of Ethics” and “apply a strategy of ethical reasoning to arrive at principled decisions, students averaged 4.3. On the competency “engage in career-long learning,” students averaged 4.8. These scores indicate that students were reaching competence in the areas assessed. On course evaluations, students reported being satisfied with the course. One student commented, “Having assignments correlated with parts of our poster presentation really helped put it together.” During the poster presentations at the end of the quarter, many students commented on their ability to integrate knowledge and practice. They were able to identify how ethics, policy, and research were all affected their work in the community.