BSW490 Praxis Capstone (3 cr.)

Prerequisite(s): All other major coursework. This course is taken in the student’s last semester before graduation.  All general education requirements must be fulfilled.

Co-requisite: BSW481  or BSW482  
In this course learners integrate social work practice knowledge, skills, and identity in a scholarly professional development or empirical research project grounded in the literature. Learners synthesize evidence about practice strengths and growth needs, propose a scholarly project to achieve a clear practice improvement goal, implement the project, and disseminate the outcome in a social work praxis symposium or other instructor-approved venue. During a culminating praxis roundtable, learners consider how habitual attention to self-directed, systematic, scholarly practice inquiry helps the social work profession sustain its commitment to human and community well-being. Professional development projects may follow empirical and or practice-based inquiry frameworks.

Upon completion of this course, students are expected to be able to do the following:

1. Apply multidisciplinary theoretical frameworks, social work approaches and professional codes of ethics to conduct evidence-based self-assessment of practice competence.
2. Articulate personal capacity to act in solidarity with clients and communities.
3. Design and implement a research-informed, systematic, self-directed professional development process to improve effectiveness in affective, behavioral, cognitive, social, or spiritual domains of practice.
4. Demonstrate professional tolerance for ambiguity and appreciate the necessity of life-long learning.
5. Articulate an ethic of professional identity development as a responsibility to self, community, and the profession.
6. Apply professional writing skills for a scholarly audience and purpose, including drafting and editing.
7. Synthesize scholarly, evidence-based resources, using discipline specific citation style.