[jamescw1234]

4J03 is a required social work course, but other students are welcome to take it as well if they have completed Soc Work 1A06 and registered in Level III or above. However, I would suggest one steers clear of this class. It is a time consuming and aggravating course with no structure what so ever. I have normally praised the professor Sandra Preston, I found her to be a great seminar leader and professor in previous classes, this time I was rather disgruntled (like many of my fellow classmates) that she only had two full lectures the whole year. She never gave any clear guidelines what to do and what how assignments would be graded.

Essentially this class is an introduction to social movements, you in groups of about 5 or 6 have to create an advocacy project with the help of a community mentor. You can do anything you want really. You're expected to go into the community and create a project based on the mentor's organization they're affiliated with. I was on the Disability Action Group based out of the School of Social Work, I had an amazing mentor and amazing group. So the actual group work was really great. We put on a forum (Don't Diss My Ability, which was advertised on MI) that involved discussion and multimedia. However, it took a lot of work which makes it difficult for a lot of social work students who have to do placement two days a week.

We had two full lectures, and two one hour lectures during the whole class. The days off was when we had scheduled group work time. During lecture we were challenged and at times annoyed with some of the things we were being told. We had our social work values questioned, and were told that bad social workers don't join social movements (lolwhat?). I felt the lack of lectures and the way they were conducted made people care less than they already did about social movements.

Course Breakdown:
Communication: 25%
You have to communicate your group's process somehow. You aren't told how to do it. We created a blog, as did most people. How is this being graded? No idea.

Assignments: 40%
You do two assignments worth 20% each, one assignment you pick a social movement related to your project, and then for another one you discuss how to advocate for a particular group. Everyone did poorly on the assignments, we had our social movement lecture AFTER the assignment was due. So many people were told their assignment was not based on a social movement. On my advocacy assignment, I was told what I was doing wasn't really advocacy. No rubrics were given, as she wanted us to "take risks." This was the worst part of the class.

Presentation 25%
You do a poster presentation in Gilmour Hall, many community members and faculty come to this. One presentation on the project itself, and another on its process. Again, I am unsure how this was graded. Our prof spend about two minutes reading over our poster, and did not want to keep them. So this left me worried.

Participation 10%:
Your community mentor will give you a participation grade.

So yes, lack of structure, no clear guidelines on assignments and presentations makes this class very difficult in aggravating.