Signature Pedagogy in Social Work Education: Insights From an Early Adopter

• In Event: Hilton Roundtable Session 1
  In Roundtable Session: Exploring Signature Pedagogies and Pedagogies of Practice: Implications for Interprofessional Education and Collaborative Practice

Abstract

Purpose: Social work, as a relational profession is an early adopter of signature pedagogy. The rapid acceptance of field education as the signature pedagogy, subsequent revisions of education standards, and ongoing dialogue about possible misidentification of the profession’s signature pedagogy provides a well-positioned exemplar case study for exploration of the intersections of signature pedagogy and teaching a practice.

Perspectives:
The structural dimensions of signature pedagogy (surface, deep, and moral) and concepts from pedagogies of practice provide the conceptual frameworks for exploring the case of social work education.1,10

Method/Modes of Inquiry:
As exemplar case study, social work education represents a profession that has embraced the concept of signature pedagogy with change occurring at multiple levels. A systems approach is the structure for the case analysis.

Data sources/evidence:
At the macro level, in 2008 the Council on Social Work Education declared field education as the signature pedagogy of the profession with the publication and revision of the Educational Policy Standards for Accreditation Standards (EPAS).15 The signature pedagogy represents the teaching/learning interaction where the student acquires, demonstrates, and integrates knowledge, skills, and values of social work. The profession argued that field education, as performance, was as important as classroom instruction. In 2015, the revised EPAS did not significantly amend these standards with continued emphasis on field education.16 Others have argued that this focus on field education as a signature pedagogy is surface only and may misidentify social work’s real signature pedagogy.17-19 Missing is the deeper understanding of the central forms of teaching a practice that go beyond the practicum or field education. The deeper structure of a signature pedagogy represents the assumptions of knowledge and know-how. 1 In social work a central assumption is an exploration and understanding of the self and its relationship to the client system.

At the micro level, exploring the use of self in the relationship of client systems through the lens of pedagogies of practice provides this insight. The continuous interweaving of personal and professional development has to be well integrated with knowledge and skills needed for practice. The continual focus of on self, family of origin, and cultural context of both student and client system are critical representations of the practice.10 The depth of the curriculum in the teaching of the relational practice is often assumed to be assimilated in field education and not fully deconstructed to enhance learning. While the approximations of practice are represented by field teaching at generalist and advance practice levels, further examination of interweaving of self in the relationship of client systems is needed.


Conclusions/Scholarly Significance
Field education in social work, as the application of signature pedagogy, has both enhanced and challenged the profession. While the profession was quick to adopt and apply the concept of signature pedagogy, further investigation of the use of self in relationship to client systems is warranted. Social work has much to offer in their teaching “relational connectedness” as applied to the teaching and learning in interprofessional education and collaborative practice.

Author

• Amanda Duffy Randall, University of Nebraska - Omaha