CELTIC

Contact Information

Center for the Enhancement of Learning and Teaching

CELTIC is attached to the Ryan Library Building- not far from the main entrance to campus
Phone: (914) 633-2146

Staff Directory »

Faculty Grants and Awards - 2012 Recipients

2012-2013 Presidential Teaching Scholar Award

Competency-Based Field Education: Pilot Testing a New Program to Enhance Student Learning in the Field

Jeanne Matich-Maroney
Social Work Department

Field education (i.e., supervised agency-based student internships), has been at the center of social work education since its inception. Most recently, the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) elevated its status by identifying it as the profession's signature pedagogy (EPAS, 2008). At the same time, CSWE also introduced a formal set of professional competencies within its updated Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards (2008). In so doing, it shifted social work education into a competency-based paradigm. All instructional efforts, both in the classroom and in the field are now aimed at promoting and assessing student competency attainment.

To support this competency-based paradigm, The E-Field Program: A Competency-based System for the Social Work Practicum (Matich-Maroney, 2013) has been developed as a comprehensive, web-based program designed to facilitate a systematic approach to field instruction and the assessment of competency attainment. Informed by the field-tested Task-Centered Educational Supervision Model (Caspi & Reid, 1998, 2002), the E-FP is intended to provide an electronic platform to support TCS implementation.

The E-FP is the first of its kind to fully integrate field instruction and assessment processes in an electronic format. Pearson publishing began previewing the E-Field Program in the spring 2012. To date, it has garnered very positive reviews and there has been a high degree of interest in its expedient release. Now poised for national launch, this project will initiate a concurrent field trial to be conducted with Iona College social work majors who will be among the first student user cohorts of the E-Field Program.