| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立暨南國際大學 === 社會政策與社會工作學系 === 104 === The Social Worker Act has been implemented in Taiwan since 1997, and Senior Professional and Technical Examinations for Social Workers has dominated instructions of social work in formal education. The dominance of the given examination over instructional design of core courses in social work education has becoming increasingly obvious, and has indirectly affected the teaching autonomy among social work instructors, probably making instructors in the Department of Social Work caught in the dilemma between the washback effect and education-oriented curriculum.
Reflecting on my involvement in “Package Curriculum of Practicum” offered by the Department of Social Work at Soochow University, I have experienced student-centered instructions, enabling me to notice the sharp differences in educational values between the washback effect (the trend promoted by current specialization of social work education) and the student-centered instruction. Student-centered instructions place the students in the center of the learning process, paying attention to student needs and learning autonomy, focusing on reflection on the knowledge building process, and hoping students to construct meaning from knowledge building. Such perception inspired my interest in probing into student-centered instruction, hoping to have a deeper understanding of how “Student-centered Approach to Social Work Education” might work and the meaning as well as position of student-centered education in today’s social work education.
Three social work instructors practicing a student-centered instruction and three students from the Department of Social Work having experienced such instruction were invited in the current study, with dialogues adopted to examine and understand student-centered instruction. The results revealed that in the student-centered approach to social work education, the teahing method and learning style changed, by focusing not only on learning explicit knowledge but also on students’ experiential knowledge, such as the attention to the development of students’ subjectivity, the development of self-awareness, self-concept, and critical thinking.
Finally, with the teaching and learning experiences from the research participants, it is hoped that the findings of the study serve as references for future implementation of social work education. It is also the reseacher’s hope that in addition to the provision of professional knowledge and techniques, social work education could broaden its education content, focus more on students’ inner development, encourage students to cultivate self-awareness, assist students in fostering their subjectivity, emphasize students’ experience and reflection, and enhance their critical thinking.
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