This paper was first published in The Journal of Training and Development 1(2), 1990. Reproduced with the kind permission of Pepar Publications.

More Than a Supervisor: The Developing Role of the Practice Teacher

Neil Thompson

In recent years, the term student supervisor has tended to be replaced by the term practice teacher, a tendency which has been accelerated by the development of the Diploma in Social Work (DipSW) (CCETSW, 1989b). This represents not simply a changing fashion of terminology but rather a more radical change in our understanding of what the role entails. This paper examines the concept of practice teacher and seeks to clarify the dimensions of the role. In so doing, I shall contrast this more modern notion with the traditional idea of a student supervisor. The advent of accreditation of practice teachers fully confirms the role as a teaching one rather than predominantly supervisory.

The discussion takes the form of what could be called the ‘H5W’ framework - ‘H’ for how, and the 5 ‘W’s of who, what, where, when and why. Each of these aspects is considered in turn before the concluding discussion focuses on some of the main implications for social work education and training.

But first we need to be clear about the distinction between ‘practice teacher’ and ‘supervisor’. The latter term implies a somewhat passive role. It refers to an apprenticeship model in which the student learns his/her craft by working alongside, and under the supervision of, an experienced and established worker. Practice teacher, by contrast, implies a more proactive and much wider role. It refers to a process in which the social worker not only supervises the student but also takes a leading role in overseeing and facilitating the student’s learning experience. In this respect, the practice teacher undertakes a managerial role in planning, monitoring, controlling and evaluating the various aspects of the student’s educational and professional development. In short, the practice teacher, in tandem with the tutor, acts as the manager of an educational experience (Thompson, 1989).

We should note, however, that the newer terminology reflects more a change of emphasis than an entirely new role. The traditional ‘supervisor’ also undertook wider responsibilities than simply ‘keeping an eye on’ students. The practice teacher role, however, makes the wider aspects of the placement experience a higher priority and thus places greater emphasis upon them.

The implications of this key distinction between supervisor and practice teacher will hopefully become clearer in the pages that follow.

HOW - do we teach social work practice?

The traditional way is to provide suitable work and work-related experiences for the student to allow him/her to observe more experienced workers and, in supervision sessions, to discuss these experiences and draw out the learning points.

Few would doubt the value of this type of ‘hands-on’ practical experience. The practice teacher role, however, does not seek to displace this type of activity but rather to transcend it, to go several steps beyond it.

These steps include:

A greater emphasis is placed on the aspects of drawing out the learning points. There is a much stronger focus on facilitating and encouraging maximum learning rather than simply providing relevant experience plus general discussion. It is a clear teaching role and not simply a case of ‘passing on one’s experience’.
There is also a greater emphasis on direct teaching. Traditional supervision also entails ‘didactic’ teaching to a certain extent but the modern approach is characterised by a more overt educational stance. Social workers may often baulk at taking an explicit educational role but the term ‘practice teacher’ is not, or should not be, a misnomer. A clear identity as an educationalist should be part and parcel of the role.
The value dimension of social work has always been a thorny one and so it is perhaps understandable that value issues have often been displaced on placements by a pragmatic urge to ‘learn the trade’. The value dimension is today even more crucial as, after years of slumber, social work education is now waking up to the oppressions of racism, sexism, ageism, etc. (see Coombe and Little, 1986; Hanmer and Statham, 1988; and Scrutton, 1989, respectively). The development of anti-discriminatory practice hinges on having the courage to tackle the complex and highly sensitive value issues involved. A pragmatic ‘get on with the job’ approach would miss this dimension of social work education altogether.
Practice teaching addresses itself not only to providing and facilitating learning opportunities but also to removing barriers to learning. The practice teacher is therefore expected to have a working knowledge of the principles of how adults learn (see Thompson, Osada and Anderson, 1990 and Fontana, 1984). This entails getting to grips with learning to recognise what factors assist learning and what factors act as obstacles and are therefore to be avoided. By helping to remove obstacles, the practice teacher contributes to ‘meta-learning’, i.e. not only teaches directly but also teaches the student how to learn or how to improve learning (Gardiner, 1989).

WHO - is involved in this process?

Obviously both the student and practice teacher are involved in this process, but it is worth emphasising that this is not simply a teacher-pupil or master-apprentice relationship. The aim of the exercise is to produce ‘student-centred learning’ in which the student plays a more active role. As Rogers (1961) puts it: ‘I have come to feel that the only learning which significantly influences behaviour is self-discovered, self-appropriated learning’ (p. 276).

Thus the learning process is a participative one and the practice teacher is therefore expected to encourage full participation (including challenging and criticising where appropriate) and to discourage the traditional passing on of supposed ‘pearls of wisdom’.

Freire (1972) describes this traditional method as the ‘banking’ concept of education in which knowledge is ‘deposited’ in the students who become passive receptacles. His comments are particularly relevant to social work education, especially when seen in the context of our attempts to develop anti-oppressive practice and thus a more critical form of education:

The more students work at storing the deposits entrusted to them, the less they develop the critical consciousness which would result from their intervention into the world as transformers of that world. The more completely they accept the passive role imposed on them, the more they tend simply to adapt to the world as it is and to the fragmented view of reality deposited in them. (1972, p. 47)

The nurturance of anti-discriminatory practice therefore hinges on moving away from the traditional expert-novice model towards a participative style of learning.

This also implies seeing the learning process in the context of a wider range of personnel. The tutor obviously has a central role to play in formulating objectives in the contract stage and overseeing and guiding the whole process. He/she is a key figure in the placement ‘triad’ but we should not forget about the host of others who can or should play a part.

This includes team colleagues, managers, specialists from other disciplines and, of course, those ‘unsung heroes’ of practice teaching - the clients themselves. The practice teacher is not simply ‘supervising’ the student but overseeing, co-ordinating and facilitating contact with these important learning resources. Practice teaching therefore entails resisting the temptation of developing a cosy one-to-one supervisory relationship. Human learning resources are many and varied in social work and the practice teacher is fortunate to be in a position to draw upon these.

WHAT - is to be learned?

This amounts to determining the practice curriculum as it has become known in recent years. There is no simple, clear-cut answer to this question. Becoming a social worker is not simply a matter of learning a finite set of skills and facts. The very nature of social work is far too unclear and prone to flux to lend itself to such an approach. Rojek et al. (1988) argue a similar point from the perspective of discourse analysis:

discourse analysis emphasises the conditional, changeable character of social work. It shows that there is nothing fundamental or inevitable about the form of social work. Social work is just that: a form. Like human nature and society, it is moulded by a great many distinct influences. (p. 131)

However, this does not imply that there is no common ground, that a structured curriculum is not possible. On the contrary, there are various practice curriculum models available (e.g. see Doel, 1987). In this context, the task of the practice teacher can be seen as twofold:

To develop, with the student (and tutor), a structured set of learning objectives and ensure that the appropriate steps are taken to meet these objectives as far as possible.
To maintain a flexible approach to learning in order that (a) unanticipated learning opportunities can be capitalised upon and (b) unexpected difficulties can be overcome.

The first point avoids the extreme of a totally unstructured, hit and miss, ‘learn what you can’ approach, whilst the second seeks to avoid the extreme of a rigid approach which cannot cope with the vagaries and uncertainties of both social work and education (Thompson, 1990). The practice teacher thus aims to strike a balance between structure and flexibility.

Developing a practice curriculum involves being clear about the student’s learning needs, how the practice teacher intends to facilitate meeting them, and how the process of learning is to be evaluated. This is, of course, a key part of negotiating a placement contract.

The ‘what’ of practice teaching will consist of a mixture of ‘commonalities’ - e.g. communication skills and anti-oppressive practice - and ‘specifics’ - matters relating to this particular placement, particular student, or both.

WHERE - does learning take place?

The simple answer to this question is ‘everywhere’. Learning should be taking place in the college/university setting in terms of developing a legal, theoretical and professional knowledge base. This should be enhanced, extended and brought to life by direct experience of practice whilst on placement. The two aspects of learning - theory and practice - are bridged by good quality practice teaching via consultation and formal supervision sessions.

This much is clear and straightforward, but it neglects a key dimension of where learning takes place - in the student’s own personal life world or Weltanschauung. Social work education is not simply a technical skills training. It involves values, beliefs and ideologies and, if anti-discriminatory policy is to be more than rhetoric, it further involves challenging the oppressive dominant ideologies of sexism, racism, ageism and so on.

It is not intended that such challenging should be only at the academic level of critical analysis. Rather, it should be something we take on board as part of a re-evaluation of our taken-for-granted assumptions. As Beth Humphries puts it:

The ultimate goal is liberation through what Mezirow (1983) calls, ‘perspective transformation’, which entails the effort to help students reflect on their experience of social roles and relationships, to identify real problems involving reified power structures, to recognise that meanings are constructed from unreflected upon assumptions about social reality. (1988, p. 13)

Anti-oppressive social work education is premised on a questioning and challenging of discriminatory values and attitudes. Thus, the process of learning cannot be kept within the parameters of occupational structures. ‘Perspective transformation’ is more fundamental than this; it cannot have a real impact in professional terms without also impacting on our personal lives.

Learning therefore takes place (or should take place) in the personal sphere as well as the work sphere. The practice teacher may need to be sensitive to this as the wider implications of changing one’s values and attitudes can be quite major. This goes far beyond a traditional supervisory role but care needs to be taken to ensure it does not go too far and become an inappropriate counselling role.

WHEN - does learning take place?

According to Sartre, the French philosopher and social theorist, learning only takes place when we change, when new information or circumstances bring about a change in us (see Sartre, 1958, 1963). Acquiring new information may extend our knowledge base but, if this new knowledge has no effect on our thinking and our actions, it will have little meaning and will be relegated to the dark recesses of our memory.

This partly explains the gap between theory and practice. If ‘theory’ or new knowledge succeeds in changing our thinking, we tend to take it on board and no longer regard it explicitly as theory because it has become part of our ‘commonsense’, our implicit ‘practice wisdom’ (Curnock and Hardiken, 1979). If, on the other hand, it fails to change our thinking, it remains separate from us, divorced from the reality of our practice. Thus, in either case, theory is seen as distinct from practice and so it is not surprising that the concept of applying theory to practice is a thorny one.

In view of this, practice teachers who prefer to ‘concentrate on practice’ are thereby devaluing the theory side of the equation and, in so doing, they do their students the disservice of making effective learning a harder task.

In short, learning takes place when theory and practice meet and new forms of thinking and practising result.

WHY - do we need practice teaching?

The reasons are many and varied and could form the basis of a major study in their own right. I shall therefore limit myself to outlining some of the major substantive reasons:

Practice teaching brings theory to life. It facilitates the process of integrating theory and practice and thus a) consolidates college-based learning and b) elucidates agency-based learning.
Practice teaching provides a protected environment in which ideas and forms of practice can be tried out and developed.
Values and beliefs can be explored and challenged, thus laying the foundations for anti-oppressive practice.
Students can learn to use supportive supervision to good effect and thus set the scene for a continuing process of performance appraisal-feedback, motivation and professional development.

Without good quality practice teaching, social work education would consist of a theoretical base which is not grounded in practice, in concrete human action, plus an uncritical practice based on ‘commonsense’ and intuition - i.e. ideological assumptions.

Practice teaching thus provides a focal point where the theoretical knowledge base, the value base and practice issues meet and merge. All three areas play a vital part in social work in general and social work education in particular. Two out of three is not really a valid alternative. Practice teaching therefore forms an essential fulcrum for the promotion of good educational practice in social work.

Practice teaching is a crucial vehicle in meeting educational objectives. CCETSW, in setting the requirements for becoming an accredited practice teacher, includes an ability to ‘help students to transfer learning from one situation or setting to another’ (1989a, p. 10). This is clearly an educational role proper, rather than a traditional supervisory one, and so progress in social work education is premised on progress in developing effective practice teaching and learning.

Conclusion

By examining practice teaching within an ‘H5W’ framework, I have sought to outline a range of key issues which affect the development of a social work practice grounded in relevant theory and values.

What I have described or advocated reflects what has been good practice for many people over many years. However, the point I seek to emphasise is that such a level of good practice now needs to be standard and minimum if social work education is to be accorded the value and respect its students, clients and practitioners merit.

In fact, the establishment of a system of accreditation of practice teachers and agencies can be seen as a process of identifying past and current examples of good practice in practice teaching and learning and codifying these as the basis of a set of expected standards.

The arrival of the Diploma in Social Work (DipSW) heralds a much clearer and more focused emphasis on partnership, the successful collaboration between agencies and colleges/universities. There will therefore be less tendency to see social work education as primarily a matter for the colleges. This represents, in some respects, a significant power shift towards the practical base of social work agencies, thus placing greater significance on the role of the practice teacher.

Accreditation and extensive training of practice teachers will mean that the responsibility for practice teaching will be more concentrated; it is anticipated that the tendency will be for fewer people to become engaged in practice teaching (given the resource implications of becoming trained and accredited) and therefore those who do become involved will do so more intensively. Thus, the practice teaching role will again become more significant for those who undertake it.

Whilst supervision, in the sense of regular focused discussion of theory, practice and values, is an essential part of practice teaching, it is clear that the practice teaching role extends far beyond that of student supervisor.

Social work education is in a period of rapid change (as indeed is social work itself) and so the developing role of the practice teacher can play a major part in ensuring that such change amounts to improvement and progress.

References

CCETSW (1989a) Improving Standards in Practice Learning, CCETSW Paper 26:3
CCETSW (1989b) Requirement and Regulations for the Diploma in Social Work, CCETSW Paper 30.
Coombe, C. and Little, A. (1986) Race and Social Work, Tavistock, London
Cooper, C. L. and Makin, P. (1984) Psychology for Managers, Macmillan, London
Curnock, K. and Hardiker, P. (1979) Towards Practice Theory, Routledge, London
Doel, M. (1987) ‘The Practice Curriculum’, Social Work Education 6(3)
Fontana, D. (1984) ‘Learning and Teaching’ in Cooper and Makin (1989)
Freire, P. (1972) Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Penguin, Harmondsworth
Gardiner, D. (1989) The Anatomy of Supervision, Open University Press, Milton Keynes
Hanmer, J. and Statham, D. (1988) Women and Social Work, Macmillan, London
Humphries, B. (1988) ‘Adult Learning in Social Work Education: Towards Liberation or Domestication?’, Critical Social Policy 23
Mezirow, J. (1983) ‘A Critical Theory of Adult Learning and Education’, in Tight, M. (1983)
Rogers, C. (1961) On Becoming a Person, Constable, London
Rojek, C., Peacock, G. and Collins, S. (1988) Social Work and Received Ideas, Routledge, London
Sartre, J. P. (1958) Being and Nothingness, Methuen, London
Sartre, J. P. (1963) Search for a Method, Vintage, New York
Scrutton, S. (1989) Counselling Older People, Age Concern
Thompson, N. (1989) ‘Practice Teachers: They’re Managers Too’, Insight 11/10/1989
Thompson, N. (1990) ‘The Uncertainty Principle in the Teaching of Social Work and Social Science’, Social Science Teacher 19(2)
Thompson, N., Osada, M. and Anderson, B (1990) Practice Teaching in Social Work, PEPAR Publications, Birmingham:
Tight, M. (ed.) (1983) Adult Learning in Education, Croom Helm, London

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