The Craft of Teaching About Families

Strategies and Tools

Deborah L. Berke, Steven K. Wisensale

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781136447679
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Learn how to develop and teach effective courses on the vital issues of family life

The Craft of Teaching About Families presents a variety of course designs, evaluation methods, and teaching techniques and strategies that can be used to address the complexities of family life. This unique book prepares students for the challenges they'll face as they leave the campus for the classroom, providing them with the problem-solving skills they'll need for success. The book's contributorsa distinguished panel of family scientists, sociologists, public policy analysts, psychologists, and extension specialistsexamine a range of topics, including family law and policy, advocacy, parenting skills, international families, and diversity.

One of the few books geared to teaching family studies, particularly family policy and family law, The Craft of Teaching About Families reaffirms the importance of teaching in a time when controversial family issues receive constant attention from the media, the courts, and the legislatures. In addition to articles on family policy, family law, marriage and the family, family interaction and dynamics, and cultural diversity, the book addresses empirical assessments of internships and service learning activities in family-oriented courses, the effectiveness of various teaching strategies, including role-playing, classroom simulations, and Web-based assignments.

Divided into three sections for ease of use, The Craft of Teaching About Families examines:

Family Law and Family Policy

how to build writing skills through the preparation of court briefs and policy memos

how to use cooperative learning research teams to teach family law

how to design better courses by understanding students' perceptions of family policy issues

how cooperative extension can help involve families in the policymaking process

Family Dynamics

how to develop a course in father-daughter relationships

how to incorporate parenting education workshops into a parent-child relationship course

how to prepare students to become competent multicultural educators

how to develop a course on international families from a family strengths perspective

how to develop a new framework for teaching family resources management

Teaching Techniques in Family Science

how to incorporate effective role-playing into the syllabus

how to use small-group work to create a positive experience in the classroom

how to educate future teachers about psychological abuse

how to teach students about forgiveness toward those who have hurt them

how to analyze the results of service-learning assignments in family diversityThe Craft of Teaching About Families is an essential resource for professionals who teach about individuals and families at any level, in any settingformal or informal.

TEACHING FAMILY LAW AND FAMILY POLICY

Editors’ Comments

Debra L. Berke
Steven K. Wisensale

Once on the back burner of university curricula, Family Studies continues to gain greater recognition and respect as a discipline. Clearly, this is a reflection of developments in society as a whole, with stories about controversial family issues surfacing almost daily in the national media and greater attention being devoted to family matters by legislatures and courts with each passing year. What was once personal and private has become part of public debates and political campaigns. It is within this context that instructors must teach and students must learn about the complexities of today’s families.

However, teaching is an occupation practiced in private. “Professors … walk into the classroom and close the door–figuratively and literally–on the daunting task of teaching. When we emerge we rarely talk with each other about what we have done, or need to do” (Palmer, 1993, p. 8). Shulman (1993) calls this “pedagogical solitude.” These articles in this collection make the private public through their scholarship. Each article exemplifies the scholarship of teaching and learning (Boyer, 1990) as they reflect on teaching about families.

As presented in this stimulating collection of papers, there are a variety of course designs and teaching strategies that can be employed to address the complexities of family life in the twenty-first century. Aware of the challenges that students will face as they leave the campus for the real world, instructors strive to provide their charges with not only a solid knowledge base in family science, but to arm them with the appropriate skills they need to solve problems that may not yet exist. Therefore, it is only fitting that the topics covered in these papers include family law and policy, advocacy, parenting skills, international families, and diversity, among others.

The collection will be presented in three subsequent issues of Marriage & Family Review. With respect to the first set of articles, the focus is on family law and policy. Britner and Alpert’s excellent article on building writing skills through the preparation of court briefs and policy memos is complemented by Henderson and McWey’s innovative approach to teaching family law through the use of cooperative learning research teams. The Leite and Viramontez Anguiano paper reminds us that we should devote some time early in our policy courses to gauging our students’ knowledge and perspectives on various issues. And while the Anderson, Braun and Walker article focuses on advocacy skills, the Greder and Warning paper carries the concept a step further through the use of simulations and role-playing that are applied to a community setting.

While the first set of papers explores skill-building strategies, advocacy techniques, and policy issues from a macro perspective, the second set of articles, to appear in a subsequent issue, concentrates primarily on family dynamics. For example, Linda Nielsen argues strongly for a course on fathers and daughters and then goes on to offer an excellent blueprint for those who wish to follow her recommendation. In Richardson et al.’s work we learn how to convert a course in parenting education into a service learning activity. Robila and Taylor’s paper on international families is complemented by Medora’s work on the importance of creating a cross-cultural perspective when teaching about families. And finally, Hilton and Kopera-Frye remind us of the importance of family resource management as a subject field and not only argue for its inclusion in the curriculum, but provide us with a model for doing so.

The final set of papers, also in a subsequent issue, serves as an excellent resource for teaching techniques in clinical settings, small groups, and special workshops. Browning, Nelson and Collins recommend the use of a role-playing technique as part of clinical training. Koropeckyj-Cox, Cain, and Coran discuss the value of using hypothetical families in small group discussions in a large introductory course. O’Neil et al. provide us with two excellent articles. One concerns teaching about psychological abuse in families, with a particular emphasis on prevention. The other explores a process evaluation for a workshop on forgiveness. And, for our final paper in this collection, Toews and Cerny examine the impact of service learning on student development in a family diversity course.

As we move forward in teaching family studies, we need to remind ourselves that there are few venues, other than a published collection of papers like this one, where we can exchange teaching strategies and seek advice from each other. Most professional conferences tend to be biased toward research presentations, not panels on teaching family studies. Currently there is only one organization, the Family Science Association, which strives to enhance the teaching of family science; for more information about the Family Science Association, see their website: http://wcuvax1.wcu.edu/~lroberts/FSA.html. The National Council on Family Relations has a Section whose mission is to expand, strengthen, and enhance family science as a scholarship discipline–the Family Science Section–that sponsors sessions on teaching but it is one of the smallest Sections of NCFR. Therefore, we need to think of better ways to communicate with each other and expand our ways of sharing our knowledge and pedagogical skills. Perhaps within our respective professional organizations we can start a new section or special interest group on teaching about families or work to expand groups which already exist. Or, perhaps we can create a listserv that is devoted exclusively to teaching courses in family studies. A more ambitious project of course would entail the establishment of a Web site where ideas could be exchanged and discussed, syllabi could be made available, and reports and papers could be posted. Thus, instead of viewing this collection as a final project, we should instead look upon it as a reaffirmation of the importance of teaching for those of us who care about teaching.

REFERENCES

Boyer, E. L. (1990). Scholarship reconsidered: Priorities of the professoriate. Princeton, NJ: The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.

Palmer, P. (1993). Good talk about good teaching: Improving teaching through conversation and community. Change, 25, 8-13.

Shulman, L. (1993). Teaching as community property: Putting an end to pedagogical solitude. Change, 25, 6-7.

Writing Amicus Curiae and Policy Briefs: A Pedagogical Approach to Teaching Family Law and Policy

Preston A. Britner
Lily T. Alpert

ABSTRACT. In this article, we make an argument for the importance of policy education for marriage and family students as a way of promoting critical thinking and engagement in science translation or advocacy. Several relevant active pedagogical approaches to teaching about law/policy are reviewed. We then describe the objectives and assignments from a class on Child Welfare, Law, and Social Policy, including written policy briefs and amicus curiae (friend of the court) legal briefs, and subsequent oral presentations. Student feedback is presented from eight classes with undergraduates and graduate students over a five-year period. We end with some conclusions about the approach. [Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-HAWORTH. E-mail address: <[email protected]> Website: <http://www.HaworthPress.com> © 2005 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.]

KEYWORDS. Amicus curiae brief, family law, family policy, family studies, pedagogy, policy brief, student feedback

INTRODUCTION

Courses in policy and law are important for students studying marriage and family relations because they contribute to students’ awareness of the interplay between family life and non-family aspects of the society. Scholars note that one major goal of a family policy/law course is to give students an understanding of “the intersection of the law and family development and how political, sociocultural, and economic processes influence the development and implementation of family law” (Henderson & Martin, 2002, p. 358). Students must understand how policies and laws affect families (e.g., Bogenschneider, 2002; Rickel & Becker, 1997) and how research can affect laws and policies (e.g., Bogenschneider, 2002; Melton, 1987). They must understand the policy or legal arena before designing their studies, in order to design studies that address the relevant legal/policy questions (Reppucci & Aber, 1987).

Several recurrent themes appear in the discussion of essential components of policy courses. Many authors agree that the goals of such courses should include an increase in students’ critical thinking skills, full engagement of students in the course content, and an increase in students’ knowledge of course material (Endersby & Webber, 1995; Keller, Whittaker, & Burke, 2001), as well as an acknowledgement of the contextual nature of public policy (Anderson & Skinner, 1995; Boyd, 1989; Brunner, 1997). In addition, researchers agree that policy courses should go beyond the delivery of course material. A successful policy course prepares its students to be educated and active consumers of public policy information. Furthermore, students should emerge from such a course better able to participate in the policymaking process (Henderson & Martin, 2002; Rocha & Johnson, 1997).

Describing the goals of a Master of Public Administration (MPA) program at Columbia, Cohen, Eimicke, and Ukeles (1995) write: “In our view, the goal of the public policy program is to create public sector problem solvers: people who are agile, flexible, politically astute, modest, and humble in the face of greater experience” (pp. 620-621). Many of the same attributes and skills seem to pop up on lists of desirable characteristics across a variety of social and human service fields.

RELEVANT PEDAGOGICAL APPROACHES

This paper fits with recent attempts to bridge teaching with scholarship (Huber, 2004). We briefly review some of the relevant pedagogical approaches that have informed the development of the course.

Active Learning and Critical Thinking

The literature suggests that a multifaceted, “hands-on” kind of curriculum (as opposed to the passive lecture and exam approach) is the most effective way to create a course on public policy (Anderson & Skinner, 1995). These curricula take the policymaking process from the abstract to the practical, offering students the opportunity to learn by doing. Instructors have developed creative ways to incorporate this active learning style into their classes.

A variety of active learning approaches have been attempted by instructors. Debating has been suggested as an effective method in family policy classrooms (Anderson & Skinner, 1995). Keller and colleagues (2001) describe a child and family policy course for social work masters’ students in which policy debating was the students’ central project. Students were assigned to opposing sides of debates on various child welfare topics. Teams of students prepared their cases and debates were conducted in a professional way, allowing fixed amounts of time for statements, rebuttals and questions. The authors found that the exercise was effective in helping students identify their values, analyze competing positions, and advocate for their point.

Rocha and Johnson (1997) use other active learning styles in their social work course. For one assignment, students combined their family policy knowledge with policy practice skills to produce a “written communiqué”–an op/ed piece or legislative proposal. In the group project, teams of students analyzed a specific family policy issue and developed a “change strategy” for dealing with a specific family or child policy issue at the agency or community level. The curriculum prepared students for these projects by going into detail on the policymaking process. Readings highlighted policymaking techniques and skills such as persuasion, coalition building, letter-writing campaigns, and testifying before committees.

Endersby and Webber (1995) report on a semester-long project in which undergraduates took on roles of policymakers, lobbyists, and members of Congress. They researched and prepared briefs, memos, and bills using email and message boards to communicate progress to students with different roles in other classes. The simulation culminated in a two-day long mock Congress.

The goals of active learning also emphasize critical thinking. Definitions of critical thinking vary, but most characterize it as “the intentional application of rational, higher order thinking skills, such as analysis, synthesis, problem recognition and problem solving, inference, and evaluation” (Angelo, 1995, p. 6). Critical thinking is viewed as one of the basic competencies every college graduate should have (Diamond, 1997). Asay and Curry (2003) outline a critical thinking project for marriage and family students in which they solve problems related to a family-centered personal or societal problem. The steps of the project reflect the necessary skills for policy making, which is really problem-solving on a societal scale. The steps include: identifying a problem; gathering information and research on the topic; generating a “perfect world” solution; formulating several possible realistic solutions; choosing one workable solution; constructing an action plan; and reflecting on the problem solving process.

Other elements of family policy curricula devoted to active, contextual learning include: internships (Cohen et al., 1995), observing local government sessions, letter writing to public officials, working directly with community advocacy agencies, discussing family policy in current events (Anderson & Skinner, 1995), cooperative learning exercises and class discussion of c...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Teaching Family Law and Family Policy
• Family Dynamics
• Teaching Techniques in Family Studies
• Index