This semester I taught the final Advanced Social Service Practicum course in our program for the first time. I had a lot of flexibility with how I wanted to use the assignments in the course, so at the end of the winter I asked students what they would like to do for a major assignment. We had a brainstorming discussion and one student brought up the resource collection she had created last year in her first practicum. Through continuing discussion we co-developed a very open-ended “Collection/Portfolio” assignment. I asked students to gather together resources, skills, experiences, or anything else that they collected along their way through practicum. The main criteria was I wanted to see something robust, with evidence that it was created over time, and that it had to be a collection of things.

I was really impressed with the quality and diversity of submissions for this assignment. Having it so open-ended gave students a lot of leeway to pursue their areas of interest and passion, use various technologies and design skills and software, and weave in other elements such as narratives or anecdotes from their practicum experiences or personal journeys.

The sample below is an exemplar submitted by Sam. I was so impressed with the formatting, design, detail, and amount of resources included in this community map. As someone who used to work with families in the community I would have loved to have this resource on hand, to use myself and share with families. In particular the section on strengths and barriers is really helpful trying to understand services and make the right referral for a family.

Community-Resource-Map-Sam-Atkinson-

Photo by Jon Tyson from Unsplash.com