Online and Blended Methods for Teaching Interpersonal Skills and Teaching Professional Online Interpersonal Skills in Social Work
Keywords:
Online skills development, Online interpersonal skills, Blended learning, Online assessmentAbstract
Interpersonal skills are one of eight aspects of practice identified by the Australian Association of Social Workers (AASW) as required to achieve competency. Face-to-face has been the preferred method for teaching these skills, yet the shift to online and blended learning models in higher education has encouraged social work educators to teach interpersonal skills online, resulting in rigorous debate within the discipline about the effectiveness of such an approach. Additional motives to teach these skills online include access, inclusivity and development of authentic professional skills and assessment. In this context, the author redeveloped the core interpersonal skills subject, within a BSW course, to facilitate the development of students’ interpersonal skills online. As a result of introducing the blended and online teaching methods, new content was included to teach students professional online interpersonal skills. This paper presents the author’s reflections on the process of design, implementation and evaluation of the project. The reflections explore strategies and areas for consideration useful to others wanting to engage in online teaching or teaching online interpersonal skills. The author argues for the need to shift focus from debates about online teaching methods to developing best practice for teaching social work students professional online interpersonal skills.
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