Introduction to Social Work: Teaching in Two Arenas at Once

Despite the absence of a CSWE mandate, most BSW programs have chosen to offer and require an introduction to social work course. A decade ago, Popple (1991) described a lack of uniformity in these introductory courses that continues today. The introductory course serves a variety of functions, has a variety of goals, and must attend to a variety of audiences early in students' college programs. The purpose of this article is to define the teaching/learning agenda for the introductory course; suggest core content and identify the teaching/learning techniques that can be used to achieve desired results; and describe the outcomes of a course using this approach.