Field Education
Field education is considered the “signature pedagogy” in social work education, meaning that it is the central form of instruction and learning in which the profession socializes its students to become practitioners. In the field, students have the opportunity to test what they learn in the classroom and to integrate theory with practice. In accordance with CSWE standards, field education is an integral part of the MSW Program’s academic curriculum, designed to reinforce students’ identification with the purposes, values, and ethics of the social work profession, to foster the integration of empirical and practice-based knowledge, and to promote the development of professional competence. Field education is systematically designed, supervised, coordinated, and evaluated on the basis of criteria by which students demonstrate the achievement of the core competencies of generalist and specialization social work practice.
The MSW field practicum is founded upon the guidelines provided by the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) and its Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards (EPAS). The TAMUT MSW Program carefully selects field settings based on their compatibility with the values, purposes, and ethics of the profession, and guides both agencies and students in fostering the integration of theoretical and conceptual knowledge between the classroom and the field setting. The field education program provides ongoing dialogue between the student, agency, and on-campus faculty, and provides a structure for detailed evaluation of the student’s progress in developing social work practice behaviors and demonstrating mastery of the CSWE core competencies. Field internships are tailored under the defined mission, objectives, and educational level of the TAMUT MSW program.