The Field Education team works with each student to ensure that they find an agency that aligns with their career goals. 学生们填写一份在线申请表，询问他们的兴趣, strengths, experiences, 家庭责任, and access to a car—a wide range of questions that allow the team to begin to consider matches. Then they’ll upload their resume so the team can share it with prospective supervisors. The team facilitates connections with the agencies so students don’t need to find practicum experiences on their own. 学生可以建议一个他们想工作的机构, and the team will contact the organization to ensure that it’s ready and willing to train students. 

All students are assigned to work with an assistant director on the Field Education team. All assistant directors have received MSW degrees themselves and have years of experience in the social work field. They are also well-connected with many agency partners and have a great range of knowledge about available learning opportunities. 甚至在课程开始之前, our assistant directors have substantive conversations with students to get to know them and their interests. 这就开始了辨别过程, as we move to identify a prospective agency that fits their career goals and aspirations. 学生将与潜在的组织进行面试, 如果有相互匹配, the placement is confirmed typically a semester ahead of the start of the practicum itself.

The written assignments for the Field Education courses center on the competencies for social work education. 学生注重专业精神, equity, justice, and inclusion, policy, and research, to name only a few. They then use the assignments to illustrate how they have experienced those competencies in the practicum. 自我反省也是专业人士的标志, and we have designed practicum reflection assignments that help students explore their reactions and responses to the conditions they see and are working to address. The concept of “use of self” is integral to our practice—we must be conscious and aware of who we are, 我们为工作带来了什么, 以及如何利用自己来推动我们所从事的变革. 我们也非常有意在实地教育中使用创伤信息透镜, 在我们学习的过程中分享自我照顾的重要性, 哪一种既能鼓舞人心又能挑战情感.

很多作业, 尤其是在实践课上,  直接从实习经验中获得. 学生可以分析所在机构的组织结构图,  检讨他们的评核表格,  为客户制定最佳护理计划, 或者采访一位机构负责人. The course lectures and readings allow students to reflect on interaction from their placement, 加深他们对社会状况或政策影响的理解. It is a constant back and forth between the practicum and class—each provides grounding and curiosity for the other. Practicum learning is the central tenet of social work education—its signature pedagogy. This interplay between classroom learning and experiential application builds a solid foundation to ground our students as they move out into the world as professional Masters level social worker practitioners.