Online Facilitation of Field Instruction for the Social Work Programs of UP Open University

Abstract

Experiential education refers to programs that are created to widen the learning experiences of individuals beyond the four walls of the classroom and extending to work and community context. Internship programs, in particular, are seen by studies as beneficial to graduate study programs and develop practice skills and enable the transition from theories to practice. The University of the Philippines Open University, a pioneer and advocate of online teaching and learning and distance e-learning in the Philippines, has the Social Work program under the Faculty of Management and Development Studies that requires its students to undergo internship inside reputable institutions. These courses are supervised and guided online by the faculty-in-charge via the MyPortal course site. However, there are few studies addressing the effectiveness of clinical preparation of students especially with online facilitated programs. The study aimed to identify emerging themes in the reflective outputs vis-à-vis the fieldwork experiences of Social Work students in UPOU given its online mode of facilitation. A review of relevant practicum and field instruction documents and records as well as an analysis of learner’s reflections based on twelve reflection videos and integrative papers of the social work students were conducted. Results of the study on students’ reflective outputs show that students went throzugh the cycle of concrete experience, reflective observation, abstract conceptualization and active experimentation. Reflections of the students were also made in reference to the self (as a human being), the profession (as a social worker), and their multiple responsibilities (as an online learner).