Examining the Impact on Student Learning, Progression, and Retention during Natural or Human-Made Disasters

Overview: COVID-19 necessitated drastic and immediate pivots in order to overcome systematic barriers during an unprecedented time. This interactive workshop will highlight one example of an equitable virtual learning opportunity for MSW students. Additionally, participants will engage in a World Cafe to create best practices during a disruption in field education.Proposal text: The COVID-19 global pandemic disrupted educational systems and created an education gap. When the COVID-19 virus necessitated drastic responses from all aspects of society, universities faced unprecedented challenges. UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay posited, “Never before have we witnessed educational disruption on such a large scale” (as cited in Demuyakor, 2020, p. 1). Students funded by HRSA’s Scholarships for Disadvantaged Students, which promotes diversity among health professional students and practitioners who demonstrate an environmental and economical need, were also at risk of not matriculating, interrupting their scholarship, and destroying their path to employment due to field placement delays. The School’s field education department understood that this void was unjust and, therefore, established effective programming options that led to more than 52% of field students getting some or all field hours during the summer semester from faculty-created opportunities.

The Experiential Learning Labs (ELLs) program was an online skill-building experience that offered continuity in social work internship hours during the COVID-19 pandemic. Faculty or external subject matter experts provided interactive labs that comprised up to 40 field education hours per semester. ELLs were intended to bridge a gap in learning opportunities when field education was disrupted. The main feature of the program was the experiential component, where students were taught a skill or introduced to new theories or concepts and then engaged with the material with the opportunity to receive immediate feedback and support.

The ELLs aligned with one school’s Field Education Triple-A approach, which included Awareness, Availability, and Adaptability before, during, and after a disaster, has now been applied to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Awareness: Field education faculty acknowledge the disaster and its impact on individual students through effective communication to underscore that field faculty are aware of their challenges.
Availability: Field faculty provide timely information to students to understand when and how to access academic support services during turbulent times.
Adaptability: Field faculty continually examine, monitor, and adjust policies and procedures to meet the unique and often changing circumstances negatively impacting the students’ academic progress
Every school of social work has been challenged by disruptions to field education due to the COVID-19 Pandemic as well as other disasters. The interactive workshop will incorporate a World Cafe where participants will grapple with questions of knowledge, process, and prediction to real-world responses to field education disruptions in small groups that change frequently and systemically so that by the end of the presentation, each attendee experiences interactions with all other participants. The purpose of a World Cafe process is to create universality, build collective knowledge, reduce barriers to interactions, and harness the wisdom of participants to advance learning beyond what presenters have provided. The goal is to identify emerging best practices that minimize these disruptions to field education and maximize learning for all students. There will be an emphasis on preventing obstacles to learning that are especially harmful to disadvantaged students who are already overcoming numerous obstacles to obtain their degrees.