Innovation in Social Work Education: Exploring Pedagogical Technology Integration

The coronavirus [COVID-19] pandemic in the US exposed an urgent need for social work educators to be prepared to educate with technology. This banded dissertation uses Mishra and Koehler’s Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge (TPACK) integration framework to explore how social work educators integrate technology in curriculum delivery. The first manuscript is a conceptual paper that proposes a social work — specific technology integration framework using the TPACK model. In line with Section 4 of the Council on Social Work Education’s Standards for Technology in Social Work Practice (Standards), the Social Work — TPACK (SW-TPACK) model may inform new ways of thinking about how social work educators can ethically, effectively, and appropriately leverage technology to deliver discipline-specific subject matter. The second product, a systematic literature review, utilized the teaching and learning frameworks of Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy and TPACK model in analyzing 29 peer-reviewed publications between 2012 and 2020. The study was guided by the following research question: “How are specific types of technology, pedagogy, and content activities reflected in the context of social work education?” With the use of Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy, domains necessary to associate TPACK codes when condensing the existing findings conveyed in the reviewed publications were identified. The codes and categories were then summarized by the researcher in presenting the findings. The findings suggested that social work educators would provide meaningful teaching and learning experiences for their students if they have a better understanding of technology integration. Likewise, educators will improve student learning outcomes, if educators exercise familiarity with technology related pedagogy in the development of effective curriculum content. The third product is a peer-reviewed scholarly presentation, given at an international instructional technology conference. This (then) work-in-progress proposed a discipline-specific model for engaging in ethical technological pedagogy in social work distance education or online formats