University of Guelph-Humber

In recent years, social attitudes to addictions and mental health have undergone major changes that have sparked a response in the social services. National campaigns have brought mental health into the mainstream and new approaches to addictions have had a big impact on treatment and policy. At the University of Guelph-Humber, the Family and Community Social Services Program is adapting to these developments and changing with them.

For FCSS Professor Dennis Long, who is also Executive Director of Breakaway Addiction Services in Toronto, moving to online teaching for his Mental Health and Addictions class meant taking a novel approach to the course content. He’ll be presenting on the new course’s design at the University of Guelph’s Teaching and Learning Innovations conference later this month. 

Tell me about how you’ve changed the structure of your Mental Health and Addictions Course.

This is a course for the FCSS Degree Completion program, which is designed for working professionals and delivered in a distance education format. During that move from in-class to online, I worked with Brad Jennings from the University of Guelph’s Office of Open Learning on the course design, and we decided to structure it in a style that better suits this type of learning. Rather than a lecture and response format where students hear me talk about the content, we went with a problem-based model. In this model, we gave the students a series of case studies to work on. For each one, they had to work in groups to analyze the case, research solutions and decide how to proceed with the materials we directed them to.

Why make the change to a case study structure?

Case studies are one of the most valid ways to teach this topic. You’re not just talking about content, you’re using it to respond to a situation you might face as a social worker. Rather than repeating information, this helps them learn how to use it.

Are there challenges with this teaching style?

Sometimes the students would say that there wasn’t much information, but that was a deliberate part of the plan. In one case study we had a gay woman looking for treatment and I wanted the students to understand about working with that population. One of the things we often hear from LGBTQ clients at my agency is that they don’t want you to make assumptions about their orientation or lifestyle. It frustrates people when you ask them about their sexual orientation and how difficult it must be when that’s really not why they came to counselling. That was a learning moment for the students — they were proceeding with good intentions but going about it wrong.

How did course assessment work?

The course was broken into five case studies on topics like treatment options, marginalized populations and so on. There were no essays in the class and instead the students had to collaborate on case study analyses. That came with two challenges. The first was finding the materials to do the proper case study with references and citations that answered its questions, and the second was working collaboratively when they’re not together. The class saw each other for the first time at the final exam.

How did the class cope with those challenges?

It worked out surprisingly well, with just a few hitches. The main problem was that marks were given for participation, and students being students, they came up with tech-savvy ways to communicate with each other that I couldn’t see. They made Facebook pages, shared links on Twitter, and used other modes I couldn’t track. Their solution to that problem was to send me a screenshot of their exchanges or write up a narrative of their process.

Can you tell me about the document of competency exercise you had the students do?

At the mid-point and end of the course, students designed a learning structure for themselves. They picked a topic they were interested in, planned what resources they needed to learn about it, where to access them and how they’d go about learning it. If there was a particular sub-specialty they wanted to learn more about, this was a plan to do it. One student was interested in dual diagnoses as it applied to bipolar disorder, and she was able to say from the course materials, here’s what I need to find out and here’s how it will help my practice.

Any changes planned for next year’s class?

I’ll be tweaking some of the lessons and language, but overall it was a really good experience. The feedback we got from the students was positive too.

Learn more about Family and Community Social Services at UofGH.