Teaching a Mental Health Diagnosis Course Online
Lessons Learned from a Case Study
Keywords:
Online education, Teaching, Clinical skills, MSW studentsAbstract
In the last 10 years there has been a dramatic expansion of social work courses offered online. Concurrently, there is skepticism as to whether it is possible for online social work classes to be of high quality, particularly classes covering practice skills. There is a gap in the social work literature examining theoretically informed, high-quality pedagogical strategies to teach social work practice skills online. This conceptual paper provides critical reflection on the pedagogical lessons learned from teaching an asynchronous, online, mental health diagnosis course that is part of the foundational curriculum for a Master of Social Work degree at a public university in the United States (US). Our reflections on the strengths and limitations of teaching social work practice skills online are guided by the Garrison, Anderson, and Archer (2001) community of inquiry framework for online learning environments which emphasises that three intersecting processes – the social presence, cognitive presence and teaching presence – are critical to the online educational experience. Integrating our exp- erience teaching an asynchronous mental health diagnosis class and the community of inquiry framework, we reflect on three lessons learned. First, we suggest that, when well designed, an online course offers strong opportunities for students to apply personal exp- eriences to practice knowledge. We further find that the online setting offered instructors the opportunity to closely monitor student practice skills. Finally, we reflect that ethical dilemmas related to diagnosis can be addressed in online courses, but require a strong teaching presence. We propose that high-quality teaching of mental health diagnosis can occur in online platforms, but would benefit from guidance from the community of inquiry framework.
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