training days

wow! The training is moving along. The school we are working with starts MSW in October, their faculty are here along with members of another school that has not yet started their BSW program so it is all new to them as well, they are learning by working with the first school faculty on developing  their syllabi. A good way to collaborate and build on existing relationships.  They had @11 syllabi to complete (aka start on and learn what one is) yesterday at 9am. By 3:30 today, they have just 1 left, for field. Great work! Tomorrow we finish discussing issues around the syllabi, move to the field for awhile, then go to the big challenge--what assignments, activities, etc can be done for each class.  That is going to be a challenge on several levels--I don't know what content they need as some course descriptions are very general, most of them have taught BSW so that's good, but they are not social workers, in other areas of academia, and I'm sure they would prefer if we gave them lecture notes and activities for all classes.  Thus comes the difference between me being the worker bee doing stuff for folks vs. being a consultant. I have collected over the years a lot of sample syllabi, activities, slide packs, rubrics, etc so hopefully these will help them get started. So the last steps will be to let them peruse content materials I have and links to various websites to help them determine what feels comfortable and may work for them which will involve what fits the course, what fits their ability to teach in social work, and what fits their style of teaching.  I'm finding this very interesting, personally challenging--different meanings with same words. We discussed whether participation and attendance counts at all since many people miss many classes here for many good reasons (sick, no gas $, traffic, work, etc). It became a benchmark discussion, where I was talking about individual grades for individual participation one school discussed their use of what is to me a benchmark i.e. 80% of students in each class are present.  Also so similar to our conversations at home in the US about benchmarks, measures, competencies, and practice behaviors. Two to 3 more days to go.