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MyHeritage Syllabus Presentations Emails

I’ll add the presentation slides before class on Saturday. I might not send out a second email for it through.

Unit Introduction and What You Will Learn

Week 14 is the last synchronous class session of the semester, and class will take place on Saturday, 04/26. During class, we will focus on policy and program development. Through the forums, students will concentrate on professional development. The full agenda will be available closer to the class session.

Learning Objectives

Unit Assignments

Read

W-14 Small Group Discussion Forums

We will focus on policy, programs, and evaluation during the in-class section. While not directly connected, professional growth and development are a good combination with these topics. You can find what group you are in the A-02 Group Assignments and Description handout. Students must submit at least three replies this week in their group’s forum by Saturday Morning. I want all students to create and share their own professional growth plan. One of the intentions this week is to meet competency F of the Professional Transitions to Public Schools Coursework Requirement (2021, see WAC 181-79A-224), which is to use professional standards to inform professional growth planning. The forums also provide prompts to guide students in reflecting on their professional identity, career trajectory, and planning for growth. Students are asked to explore updated school social work standards and their connections with professional development, and discuss strategies for setting, reviewing, and measuring goals. Additionally, textbook-based questions prompt critical thinking about policy evaluation and development within school settings.

This week, the first person on each group list is the leader (unless your group determines to have somebody else do it). It is the responsibility of the group as a whole that one of the members engages in this leadership role. This team leader will develop a reply in W-14 Discussion Forum Synthesis that will provide an overview of your group’s discussion. Even though only the team leader needs to post in this forum, I’d like for everybody to read it so you can hear what other groups discussed.

Unit Resources

This week, students are thinking about future professional growth. The Washington State Professional Educator Standards Board (PESB), which is the same organization that accredited this class to qualify for an ESA with a social work endorsement, has a lot of resources around Professional growth plans (PGPs). While not necessary for applying for your initial ESA, for subsequent renewals OSPI outlines a few ways that social workers can document their professional growth (see School Social Worker Reissue and Renewal and e.g., 100 clock hours, submitting PGPs, or the documentation I submitted regarding CEUs and my license). I had to make professional growth plans and review them in my district, even if I didn’t submit them to OSPI. PESB has a specific section about PGPs for ESAs. As well, there is a PESB form 1697 that is the actual form to complete.

Professional growth planning is an important topic. I have worked at agencies where planning seems to be based only on checking the box, and places where it seems more highly valued. As with any planning/goal setting, it is up to the recipient to make it useful or not. You are asked to consider professional growth planning for the asynchronous parts of this course. I am sharing some examples of mine here at Heritage. This is the first year that I have had to go through this process. I’ve never worked somewhere that required a portfolio like we do here. We upload our content as faculty to Anthology (like your key assignments). I considered creating a shared link so you could see my portfolio (which is prettier than this printout of the portfolio content I am sharing). I opted not to do that, as I do have to provide examples of student work and my grading. While I removed names before uploading the materials to be reviewed, I felt more prudent not to share my portfolio in a manner that allowed access to all included files and attachments. As our portfolios require evidence, in my printout, you will find “file: name of file” throughout, whereas my submitted portfolio includes the files. I will say that this document is very long, and I put significant thought and effort into trying to demonstrate my practice as a faculty member. You can find it 2024-25 Campbell Portfolio. It does provide meaningful information about my pedagogy and thought process I take into my teaching, as well as descriptions of activities I engage in as a part of my work.

As faculty, each year, in collaboration with our department chairs, we develop a Professional Development Growth Plan and an Analysis of Faculty Effectiveness/Performance Assessment Summary. This document gets included in our portfolio, and we review it with the provost. The strengths and areas for growth are to be based on Heritage University Key Characteristics of Highly Effective Faculty And Measures of Faculty Success. You can see my 2024-25 Campbell Assessment and Professional Develop Growth Plan, which includes my goals for the next academic year and a description of my strengths and areas for growth.

The National Association of Social Workers (2025) has posted their updated Standards for School Social Workers, which is a good place to reflect on what areas we should be considering for our professional development.

Upload in-person slides here.

MyHeritage is where all of the lecture videos can be found. This week’s video is at [Spring 2025 SOWK 587 Week 14]().

Reference

Jarolmen, J., & Bautista-Thomas, C. (2023). School social work: A direct practice guide (2nd ed.). Waveland Press.

National Association of Social Workers. (2025). NASW Standards for School Social Workers. https://www.socialworkers.org/Practice/NASW-Practice-Standards-Guidelines/NASW-Standards-for-School-Social-Work-Services

Professional transitions to public schools course work requirement, WAC 181-79A-224. (2021). https://app.leg.wa.gov/wac/default.aspx?cite=181-79A-224

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