Reality-play--experiential learning in social work training

Abstract

A unique teaching model, called reality-play, arose as the result of the author's two concerns about how to teach students to integrate a theoretical model as a working tool in social work and how to prevent them from inappropriately categorising people. In this teaching approach students have to go through a whole social work process by using their own real life challenges as learning material. The purpose is to learn social work from the perspective of a social worker, a user and an observer at the same time. The discussion is divided into two parts. This first paper introduces the teaching model and shows how it builds on an overall theoretical perspective of social constructionism and on learning theories of adult, experiential and confluent learning to meet the concerns mentioned above. The second paper presents a student evaluation of the teaching model.