Kate M. Chaffin, MSSW, LAPSW, is Director of the Online MSSW Program and Professor of Practice with the College of Social Work. Kate completed her MSSW degree here at UT in 2004, and then worked as a forensic social worker in the court system until 2008. Over the years, she found that she missed the academic work she had engaged in during her graduate education and considered returning to pursue her Ph.D. However, she found that traditional Ph.D. program structures and schedules did not fit well with her family commitments. She inquired with then-Associate Dean Sherry Cummings, in UT’s College of Social Work, whether there were online options and learned that there were not—but that the college very much needed help creating them. In 2008 the College of Social Work hired her to launch their new online MSSW program, which was among the very earliest such programs in the region. As she puts it, “This was one of the best career decisions that I have ever made. I love my UTK family and I am completely invested in making UTK a welcoming environment for faculty, staff, and students.”
Ultimately, Kate did return to pursue a doctoral degree, joining a Doctor of Social Work (DSW) program that focused on teaching and learning, and has actively pursued innovative teaching methods that can better serve nontraditional students who have had experiences similar to hers. Her teaching philosophy has therefore focused on finding inclusive approaches: “The central tenets of how I teach are to assume the best, allow grace and room for growth, and strive to incorporate a diversity of learning styles into each course.” Her approach is constructivist and feminist, using methods from Dewey (1938) and hooks (1994). Her experience developing the online MSSW has served her well, and she has developed an engaged pedagogy based on a community of inquiry framework, which meshes well with the social work curriculum’s focus on practice. Her courses spend time building community and incorporating life experiences into coursework and lectures, which enhances relevance and meaning for students’ professional lives.
Kate regularly teaches Teaching Methods in Social Work, a doctoral-level pedagogy course preparing UT’s social work Ph.D. students for college-level teaching. Here, she has had the opportunity to pass on what she has learned about inclusive, engaged teaching—“I help [students] fully understand who they are as social workers so that they can bring their full authentic self to the classroom.” The course is discussion-based and includes observation and reflection, as students prepare materials for classes they might soon teach on their own.
Kate also teaches Social Welfare Policy, a course where students engage in experiential learning, attending Social Work Day on the Hill, a process of policy analysis and advocacy with state legislators. Her central emphasis for this course is on students’ autonomy and confidence as they enter unfamiliar territory and learn about structural barriers to clients and their communities. “I hope students leave my classes better prepared to educate and advocate because they have had real-life, hands-on learning opportunities,” she says.
As her colleagues in the College of Social Work observe, throughout her teaching endeavors, Kate has excelled at creating an inclusive learning environment and providing a space where students can try out new ideas and debate the important issues facing higher education. She models an attitude of caring and value for students as individuals, beginning each class with a check-in where students can share successes, challenges, and anything else that is on their minds. She works to ensure a diverse reading list, centering her doctoral teaching course around bell hooks’s Teaching to Transgress, and spends most class time in discussion and analysis, reserving only a small amount for lecture. “I love learning from my students,” she observes, “and if we do not have discussion time, then I do not have an opportunity to truly know them and help mentor them as future faculty.”
Each class period closes with a reflection on something new the students have learned and something they wish they knew more about, ensuring ongoing metacognitive attention to students’ learning processes. The process also conveys to her students her interest in their learning and her focus on addressing any challenges or barriers. In these conversations, she finds she learns from her students’ experiences and contributions, allowing for a continuous process of improvement and renewal for the course.
Kate also emphasizes that she no longer uses summative assignments but rather favors formative work on which students can receive feedback throughout the semester. With opportunities to return and rework their assignments over time, she finds that students actually retain the material more effectively. This process also helps address the needs of students who come to the university from diverse educational backgrounds, and “acknowledges that all students are worthy of opportunities for growth as the end goal is to prepare them for practice, not for failure.”
In reviewing her own past experiences, and looking toward the years ahead, Kate finds she is optimistic about the future of higher education and the teaching and learning that takes place on UT’s campus, with particular emphasis on nontraditional students and online education. As a greater proportion of college students present a less and less traditional profile of age and experience, the institution is adapting its teaching and learning practices to better suit their needs, and the students also bring valuable experiences to the table, “which creates a vibrant learning environment for everyone, including the professor.”
With this diversity and inclusive practice in mind, Kate continues to see value in online education, particularly as it provides a new avenue to educate more people, a contribution she sees as adding to the greater good of society. She recognizes some of the criticisms often leveled at online education—“but I think those criticisms can be met with pedagogical advances that ensure students learn and are engaged in their education.” For those who may still harbor misgivings, she recommends the programs offered by Teaching & Learning Innovation and the office of Online Learning and Academic Programs—as she puts it, “Faculty do not have to be scholar-practitioners in this area to have access to best practices.” Ultimately, it falls to faculty to find the best way to create inclusive environments, and also to add to the knowledgebase, sharing success strategies beyond the classroom, “so that more people can understand that online education is effective, viable, and inclusive/welcoming of a more diverse student body.”
I am proud to be a part of the change in the higher education landscape. I know from personal experience that the accessibility and quality of this educational delivery format have made me a better educator.
Teaching Resources: