U N I V E R S I T Y  O F  P I T T S B U R G H

October, 2001 

Innovation in Field Education: Web-based Integrative Seminar

In their award winning project, Innovation in Field Education: Web-based Integrative Seminar, School of Social Work faculty Patricia Kolar and Kathryn Collins will address a disconnection that often exists between classroom learning and fieldwork. They will develop, implement, and evaluate a Web-based resource page and integrative seminar for first-year social work graduate students enrolled for field placement. This project will initially focus on a group of students placed in health care settings, but, with positive results, could be expanded to other areas of social work such as child welfare, mental health, aging, and community work. Kolar is director of field education, and Collins brings extensive research background and experience to the evaluation of this project. With the exponential growth of specialized knowledge needed in the field of social work, programs are unable to deliver a sufficient knowledge base to students before they must begin practicum. At the same time, field instructors are increasingly unable to commit the necessary time to help students coordinate their multifarious tasks during this practicum period.

Kolar and Collins will develop a Web presence—a bank of resources to link the school’s professional field staff and other professional resources with students involved in field practicum. In the first phase of this project, Web-based resource pages will be developed to provide on-demand information that students have not yet been exposed to in the classroom. Kolar and Collins will collaborate with field directors to compile the appropriate resources. These Web resources will be accessible to students when they begin field placement and throughout the experience. The primary objective of the project is to ensure optimal learning and professional development during the field practicum.

The second project phase will entail establishing discussion groups (two a month) as virtual meeting rooms. In the first discussion, students will collaborate with other practicum students at other similar sites and, with faculty facilitation, will converse on selected topics. In the second discussion, students will converse with field instructors to integrate the conceptual knowledge, typically learned in the classroom, with the real-life technical demands of their practicum experience.



 

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