I taught this course for four years, a course that I chose to teach. The first time I taught it, I didn’t have any experience teaching such a course, so I based the student work on a revamped syllabus from a teacher who had taught it before. The following two years I used assignments that were similar, with a few new assignments added in the third year. However, I felt during the third year that the course wasn’t as exciting as it could be, and I decided to change its focus.
I attended a faculty seminar at the Center for Teaching Excellence, and through that experience, I shifted assignments. In essence, I made changes to make the course more appealing. I did this by narrowing the course focus and establishing enduring course goals that clarified what I wanted students to learn. I have leeway to make changes in the area of the course format, but there are set social work objectives to integrate into the course. Social work has universal standards, and these require that student meet certain set objectives as part of larger accrediting standards. The KU social welfare department also requires that its set of objectives be included in each course syllabus. Therefore, I made sure to include both the new enduring course goals and the social work objectives when I planned the course.
One element that has remained steady through the modifications has been the three basic assignments. The first time I taught the course, I had students look at a case study of their choice on three different issues. I kept that same assignment the second year. This year I discarded that assignment and replaced it with more prep work for the other three assignments to better scaffold learning.
Enduring Course Goals:
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