Transforming our teaching, incorporating service-learning into macro practice social work classes.

Abstract

This manuscript discusses how the use of service-learning in social work macro practice courses provided a foundation for the transformation of ourselves as instructors. By transforming macro practice courses with service-learning components, our central goal was to help students improve their self-efficacy in macro practice skills and, therefore, improve their self-efficacy as a generalist social worker. Our transformation as instructors involved two key aspects in our process, the first being co-teachers (across two sections of the same course), and the second being a reorientation of the course structure and plan. Incorporating service-learning projects prior to field placement provided our students an opportunity to apply what they learn in a course to a community setting. The transformational experience has implications for interdisciplinary opportunities utilizing a similar structure.