Klas-Göran Olsson, School of Health Sciences Jönköping University, Sweden Anne Karin Larsen, Bergen University College, Norway SW-VirCamp Consortium Meeting April VITERO

Content Development of a module in Community Work About the students Teaching and learning principles Presentation of the course and content Presentation of the Virtual Learning Material: The Virtual Book – Community Work from an International Perspective Students’ evaluation Teacher’s experiences oral comments

The Students 51 students from 9 countries applied 7 teachers participates– sharing the students in 3 groups Severe drop out: 1 March 35 are still in the course April 24 students in the course Only a minor group of students knew anything about CW before they started with this course BA students from 2 – 3 year, some MA studentsand professional social workers.

Principles of learning Situated learning perspective Problem-based learning, case-based, group work and discussions, chat, reflection and other ways students can be active participants in their learning process. Portfolio assessment A transparent classroom

Weekly programmes and tasks

“Social Presence” The teachers present themselves with pictures, video or a short written presentation. The students do the same. By including pictures and stories – the experience of precens in a common classroom increase.

Assignments The weekly programme contains different tasks: some tasks require cooperation among the students and some are individual tasks teacher’s feedback is an important part of the course the tasks cover the content in the course, such as: – concepts and theories in community work – corner stones in CW theories such as empowerment, participation, ownership, transparency etc – project planning – integration of theory and practice – case work; the Green Park Community – chats and role-plays

Virtual Learning Material – The Virtual Book

The EUROPE Magazine

Students feedback – Midway survey – some results (22 of 24 respondents) 87 %: feedback from teacher good and helpful, 50%: get more help than at homeuniversity 89 %: participation in a transparent classroom has been an positive experience 68%: Cooperation is important, and improve my learning 90%: Litearture have been interesting, – 0% find literature too advanced, – 87 Finds that the literature help me responding to tasks and only – 13% find English literature difficult to read 73% prefer to both see and read the screen lectures, – 0% have problems with seeing the videos

A Community of teaching and learning Q32: Experiences so far, advantages of this way of learning? “You also get different views from people from other countries than from people of your own country”, “Students and teachers also engage in a way that I believe does not exist in universities, where the student is too passive. Cooperation and solidarity between peers facilitates learning, not to mention the sharing of experiences among countries with such different cultures. this was an experience that I certainly hope to repeat!”

About Learning material/tools Q22 and 24 Green Park Community Blog “Good! Definitely the most positive aspect of the course. It feels realistic and characters are nicely worked out and portrayed. The blog also shows pictures and articles which make it interesting to read” “that it is very similar with a lot of communities in the European Union”, “It is like a training field where we can apply our knowledge. After this it could be more easier to integrate our work experience in the real communities”, “The Park case is perfect to apply theories too”, “It is more easy for me to understand theoretical points of view if I have examples. Then I am able to criticize theories and then I am able to deal with the theories. They start to become useful by comparing them how they will work in reality!

Pedagogy - Reflection Q7, Q23 “Participatory method of learning, it is not a passive method, being the student only a recipient of learning. There is an involvement of the student who led us to learn”. “The referring of the teachers were very inspiring and helpful..... I started to reflect my work, why I have studied social work and why I like to be a social worker”, ”positive feedback of teachers on my work”, “While looking on this blog I can reflect on my readings!, While reading the blog I think about how I can use my learning from readings and lectures to reach different groups”, “By reading the cases I was stimulated to read more. And to try to get a full view on the case”