Social Work MA

Teaching

You are taught through a range of traditional and creative teaching strategies. This includes formal lectures and seminars complimented by a 'flipped classroom' approach, a blended learning strategy that reverses traditional learning. You will engage in peer and self-assessment to promote autonomy in your learning. This also includes a Practice Portfolio which formatively and summatively supports learning and assessment in placement. Additionally, information technology is used to support casework in practice and teaching and assessment in academic modules. Recall days offer an opportunity for you to reflect on experiences in practice, to share best practice and to debate, evaluate and consolidate your learning experiences

In addition, meetings with personal academic tutors are scheduled on at least 4 occasions in the first year and 3 occasions in year 2 of the course.

You have the opportunity to undertake 2 practice placements: a 70 days placement in year 1 and a 100-day placement in year 2.

Contact time

In a typical week you will have around 9 contact hours of teaching, which will include a mix of lecturing activities as well as seminar activities.

During the practice placements as well as in the final year there is less contact time in order to allow students to focus more on independent study. Both placements take place over the summer months.

Typically class contact time will be structured around:

• Lectures
• During the practice placement, around placement meetings and recall days
• During dissertation, through group and individual tutorials

Independent self-study

In addition to the contact time, you are expected to undertake around 30 hours of personal self-study per week. Typically, this will involve reading, literature searching, directed study activities via Blackboard, online discussions and preparation for assessment.

Independent learning is supported by a range of excellent learning facilities, including the Hive and library resources, the virtual learning environment, and extensive electronic learning resources.

Teaching staff

You will receive teaching from a teaching team whose expertise and knowledge are matched closely to the content of the modules on the course. The team includes senior social work academics with practice expertise from a range of practice contexts in the statutory and voluntary sectors, experienced practitioners from our partner social work agencies and service users and carers from the University IMPACT group, who have a wide range of experience of using social work and social care services.

A range of contemporary social work research and development activity informs the team's teaching. In addition, 90 per cent of course lecturers are Fellows of the Higher Education Academy and hold a higher education teaching qualification. You can learn more about the staff by visiting our staff profiles.

Assessment

The course provides opportunities to test understanding and learning informally through the completion of practice or 'formative' assignments. Each module has one or more formal or 'summative' assessment which is graded and counts towards the overall module grade.

Year 1:

Academic modules will be summatively assessed and graded by way of essays or reports, individual or group presentations. Presentations are a key assessment strategy due to the need for social workers to develop skills in presenting. The practice elements of the course are assessed by means of continuous assessment against the Professional Capabilities Framework at the appropriate level and represented in an E-Portfolio. There will be two levels assessed in this way in year 1; Readiness for Direct Practice is located in the Skills and Approaches to practice module and subsequently you will be assessed at End of First Placement level during first placement.

Year 2:

Again, in year two academic modules will be summatively assessed and graded by way of essays or reports, individual or group presentations. The assessment during placement at the end of year 2 will be at End of Final Placement level of the Professional Capabilities Framework. Students will also be assessed against the Social Work England Professional Standards.

You will receive feedback on practice assessments and on formal assessments. Feedback is intended to support learning and you are encouraged to discuss it with personal academic tutors and module tutors as appropriate.

We will provide you with feedback on formal course work assessments within 20 working days of hand-in.    

Feedback

You will receive feedback on practice assessments and on formal assessments undertaken by coursework. Feedback is intended to support learning and you are encouraged to discuss it with personal academic tutors and module tutors as appropriate.

We commit to providing you with feedback on formal course work assessments within 20 working days of hand-in.

Programme specification

For comprehensive details on the aims and intended learning outcomes of the course, and the means by which these are achieved through learning, teaching and assessment, please download the latest programme specification document.