Placement Educators’ Experiences and Perspectives of Supervising International Social Work Students in Australia

Virtual Reality: An Immersive Tool for Social Work Students to Interact with Community Environments

“…In her call to action for the social work profession in a post-COVID world, Nissen (2020) identifies VR technology as an emerging area that can share and improve the larger social work practice structure. To broaden that educational ecosystem, schools could place the 360 VR tool within field preparatory courses, where novice students would benefit from obtaining skills and knowledge that can facilitate their orientation to new social environments (Harrison & Ip, 2013;Ross et al, 2019). 360 VR can guide a student and familiarize them with the community they are assigned to serve through their agency work.…”

“…To utilize the strengths of virtual simulations identified by prior research in social work education as well as address some of the educational gaps in the literature, the authors of this paper created and evaluated a 360-simulation using Wonda VR™ and the Google Daydream headset with a mobile device. Specifically, this project aims to more effectively support novice students to gain familiarity with new social contexts and communities (Felton & Harrison, 2017;Harrison & Ip, 2013;Ross et al, 2019). While it is possible to bring students physically into urban settings such as the Lower East Side in New York City, it is challenging to provide instruction and practice while guiding novice students individually through the process of observation of and reflective thinking about community nuances.…”

Constructing a conceptual framework for professional identity development in international social work students: A meta-ethnographic review

“…Presently, the literature available on international students in Australia social work education focuses on the following key aspects: students' experiences of social work education generally (Battaglia et al, 2018;Irizarry and Marlowe, 2010), field education (Diamandi et al, 2018;Goel et al, 2018;Harrison and Ip, 2013;Zuchowski et al, 2014), educators' perspectives (Ross et al, 2019;Taylor et al, 2000), social work curriculum or pedagogy (Diamandi et al, 2018;Grace et al, 2013), and off-shore social work education (Brydon, 2010(Brydon, , 2011Brydon and Liddell, 2012). Across this research, English language skills, unfamiliarity with the local context and the need for additional support or resources are frequently raised as issues associated with international students.…”

“…Most international students in Australia come from Asian countries, such as China and India (Department of Education and Training, 2019). Australian social work literature to date has examined issues relating to international students' language skills, cultural capital or competence, special needs and field education experiences (Harrison and Ip, 2013;Ross et al, 2019). However, a wider focus on student's transitions to practice or on their development as professionals has yet to be considered (Battaglia and Flynn, 2019).…”

Themed Issue on Social Work Education – Part 2

“…In this Part 2, we have grouped several articles that focus on the student experience. These include, among others, articles reporting on the demands on field practicum supervisors supervising students with diverse backgrounds (Hill, Cleak, Egan, Ervin, & Laughton, 2019;Ross, Ta, & Grieve, 2019), the value of students building positively on adverse childhood experiences in order to further their own resilience in meeting the demands of practice (Newcomb, Burton, & Edwards, 2019), and research exploring students' pathways towards developing their professional identity (Moorhead, 2019). Two articles (Boetto, 2019;Papadopoulos, 2019) have urged educators to consider the value of including in curriculum, consideration of the increasing importance of contemporary knowledge regarding the natural environment and the place of sustainability.…”