[jamescw1234]

This course is a Political and Social Context of Social Work class, social work students need to take 9 units of these classes. If you have completed Social Work 1A06 and registered in level III or above you are welcome to take them as well. This class looks at issues that affect the aging population. The course was divided into five different units: grandparenthood, caregiving, retirement, widowhood and transition to long-term care. The first week of the unit we would be given a lecture about a related theory, break into small groups and be assigned a case study/readings, then go back to lecture about social research. The next week we would start off in our small groups and discuss the readings/case study/research project, then the prof would discuss the readings with the whole class.

Jim Gladstone taught the course, overall I really enjoyed him, he has a photographic memory and really knows the articles and suggests good ones to read later on. He also seems to like almost everything everyone says/does, so you don't really feel like an idiot in his class. It's always validating. He is also very helpful when it comes to needs, he helped me big time when my final project was not going the way I hoped.

Course Breakdown:

Research Project: 40%
In this class we were to complete our own mini research project. We were to develop a research question, interview three people, complete a literature review, methodology, results and discussion section. We also had to submit an ungraded proposal before starting. It was a time consuming project and I would suggest to start early, but I did learn a lot and now am more interested in doing research.

Article Summaries: 35%
Every other week we were to complete a three page summary of an article from each unit of the class. It was an easy way to get marks. We needed to summarize the article, relate it to a theory, tie it into the case study given in class, give a personal/professional analysis then post a critical question.

Poster Presentation: 15%
We were to have a poster about our research project and then it was in typical poster presentation format. It wasn't too stressful, a few people (including the prof/TA) came to ask some questions, typical stuff.

Participation: 10%
Attendance was taken in class, and we were marked on our contribution to discussion and small group discussions. There were also two one page papers we had to hand in about the group process.

This class had a lot of work, but it was overall fairly interesting. My one critique would be that the readings were somewhat outdated. I believe our newest article came from 2004, but other than that I would suggest people to take this class.