MOOCs Offer Online Professional Development for the 21st Century Social Worker
by Molly Skawski, MSW
The best social workers I know are those who possess a growth mindset. Social workers who are quick to admit that they have much to learn are more open to considering new perspectives, challenging groupthink, and pursuing the best way forward versus the easier, well-trodden path. It is easy to see how this results in improved outcomes for the clients and communities they serve. But there is also the reality—busy social work professionals and students rarely have the time or money needed to engage in the amount of professional development they would like.
Despair not, ye 21st century social worker. Gone are the days when the only options for professional development are formal college courses or day-long conferences.
Whether a prospective employer looking for someone with command of social research methodology and design has you kicking your social work research methods student self for her back-row, no-note-taking complacency, or whether you want to learn a new skill (say grant writing), or brush up on your CBT, there may be an online professional development course for you.
Previously dominated by techie endeavors (think Intro to Coding or Java 101), the field of social work is increasingly paying attention to, and claiming its place in, the explosion of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). A MOOC is an online, open access course combining traditional types of academic course material (lectures, quizzes, and so forth), with other methods of learning, such as interactive discussion boards and participant polls.
Platforms hosting social work-relevant MOOC content include: edX, Coursera, FutureLearn, UMass Boston OpenCourseWare, and Carnegie Mellon Open Learning Initiative. Others, such as Khan Academy, do not offer social work specific content, but have courses to help with your prep work for that math portion of the GRE, and Duolingo is a great resource for learning a new language.
Users create a free account and are then able to enroll in courses. Browse the platform categorically or, on the larger sites, browse based on institutional or organizational partner (such as University of Michigan or Microsoft). Do beware—the Web is full of sites that discreetly require a fee, whether that be per course or via a subscription service, thus negating the whole “free” thing (see how much I love “free” below). The online content for any desired ongoing learning is endless, but this article will focus on those free options.
Having recently completed several such courses, and one phenomenal enough worth explicitly highlighting entitled Creating an Effective Child Welfare Programme (edX hosts the course, and the University of Pennsylvania supplies the content and teaching), I have been an online course evangelist. Coworkers, friends, family, and innocent social media bystanders can all bear witness to my zeal for this expanding learning space.
To spare those in my circle from a sixth attempt at converting them to online learning zealots, I have instead turned my attention here, to those with explicit interest in the topic (evidenced by your link-clicking), and share three reasons that this growing trend is of great value for the 21st century social worker.
1. Courses Fit Everyone’s Budget
That’s right—they are free! I have found myself working directly with children and families within the child welfare system, but focused my MSW studies on international development. The ability to supplement my on-the-job training with formal coursework pertinent to my new focus, and to do so for free, has been invaluable in filling in gaps in learning. Invaluable, and yet, free.
Many courses offer students the choice to upgrade (read: pay) to receive proof of completion of courses and potential continuing education credits. I chose to take Creating an Effective Child Welfare Programme for free, but I could have paid $29 to earn a Verified Certificate of completion and 4 CEUs accredited by the NASW upon submission of the necessary documentation. Note that not all courses are approved for accreditation by the NASW or your state’s licensing board, so it is important to do your homework before beginning the course if you are after the CEUs.
Expect each platform to have a range of options from free to premium paid services. For example, a course provided by the University of Toronto and carried by Coursera, The Social Context of Mental Health and Illness, is a paid course, but allows users to audit some of the content, such as video lectures, for free. Additionally, users can apply for financial aid to reduce or eliminate the cost of the full course.
2. Courses Fit Everyone’s Calendar
One of the highlights of online professional development courses is the flexibility. A typical course format will include a variety of pre-recorded video lectures, quizzes, and discussion assignments. The majority of courses are self-paced, allowing the user to start and stop at any point within the course. Courses will specify the estimated time commitment, usually ranging from an hour a week to 4-6 hours per week.
Some platforms’ courses require users to complete the course within a set period, such as two months. Most courses are archived, so even if a course is “live” and you want to jump in late, or if it has already finished entirely, you can start from anywhere at any time. You can finish the course in a weekend or pace yourself over several weeks. Again, refer to the platform or the course’s FAQs for the particular set-up.
If you are completing the course for credit, you likely will need to complete all of the assignments, with at least a passing grade. If you are taking the course purely for the sake of learning, you are free to choose which sections are most pertinent to you.
As with most aspects of learning, your input determines your output. By spending more time engaging with the content, and by participating in discussions with the fellow students taking the course who bring to it a variety of experiences and backgrounds, you will be amazed at how much you can learn on a Saturday morning...on your couch...in your pajamas.
3. The Variety of Course Offerings Is Great, and It Is Growing
As the world becomes ever more digitized, we have seen, and will continue to see, the growth of open source learning. Not only is this great for professionals and students; it offers enormous benefits for our clients, as well. Free courses in relation to résumé writing, interviewing, budgeting, technical skills, and other topics are more prevalent now than ever before.
Although the focus of this article is on those courses with direct application to the social work profession, the breadth of courses available is unimaginable. edX boasts more than 1,900 courses, and Coursera claims more than 2,700. The share of social work-relevant courses on these platforms is not large, but new courses are constantly being added.
Further, universities and organizations are allocating more resources to online learning platforms, thus allowing this social worker whose SAT scores were laughably not Harvard-worthy to take Harvard courses from Harvard professors (again free, again in my pajamas). When I decided that I wanted to develop my Excel skills to better manage and represent data, I progressed through multiple Excel courses, beginning with Introduction to Data Analysis Using Excel, an edX course by Microsoft.
Consider adding a commitment-free course in something that you have always wanted to do or learn to your self-care repertoire. Having recently moved across the pond to London, England, I decided that my museum-going would be greatly enhanced by some art appreciation, so I enrolled in European Paintings: From Leonardo to Rembrandt to Goya.
Lastly, while quality certainly varies across platform and course, I have been amazed to find often that the quality of teaching among online professional development courses is second to none.
Not only is Creating an Effective Child Welfare Programme taught by Dr. Richard Gelles, Managing Faculty Director of the Field Center for Children’s Policy, Practice, and Research and Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, but he also supplements his teaching by interviewing leaders in the field: policy influencers, researchers, juvenile judges, and frontline workers and supervisors. I was able to learn about changes in the field (such as new legislation that greatly affects child welfare funding and the introduction of big data and predictive analytics), and also about the competing viewpoints from those shaping practice today regarding potential implications of these changes, and the questions that remain. Like any good course, it was a jumping off point for further inquiry, and additional resources were linked or mentioned for deeper learning.
If you are looking to collect CEUs for licensure, considering a change of jobs within the field, or seeking a space to hear from and dialogue with leaders in your area of social work practice, the emergence of online professional development courses offers these opportunities and more for the 21st century social worker. Feel free to share your experiences with online professional development courses in the comment section of this article on The New Social Worker website.
Molly Skawski, MSW, is a child welfare worker and writer drawn to human struggle and grit. She can most often be heard asking: How can we do this better for those whom we serve?