Thursday, August 28, 2008

Starting a new class

This fall semester I'm teaching macro practice.  It's been a few years since I last taught community organizing, and I'm ecstatic to be back in a class like this.  The University of Illinois attracts some very bright and idealistic people into its social work program, and I think this is a fun place to teach.  

I'll try to post some thoughts inspired by what happens with the class.  This week I've been thinking about how to do some simulations and in-class practice exercises.  I did this frequently when I taught the course to graduate students at the Urbana-Champaign campus or UMSL when I was an adjunct, and I still have the exercises I used there, but those were community organizing classes, and this is a macro practice course with a considerable emphasis on how to work as a human services or social services professional from within an organization.  Luckily, I have some graduate students in the Liberal and Integrative Studies Program here who have done their self-created degrees in the fields of human development within organizations and organizational development and management, so I've know some folks who are seriously interested in that aspect of macro practice and happy to talk about the topic with me.

  - Eric