A constant concern for educators is how best to train the students. With the knowledge explosion and increasing complexity of the social problems, we have to look for ways to strengthen social work students' ability for continual development. Enhancing their lifelong learning competence would help them to face the future demands. To achieve this, the University of Hong Kong Department of Social Work and Social Administration ventured to use the problem-based learning (PBL) approach in some Year two practice courses of the Bachelor of Social Work program. This paper reports on the findings and shares some reflection on the experience.
[Copyright of Journal of Teaching in Social Work is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1300/J067v26n03_07]

Social work training programmes in China have increased rapidly in the last decade. Their growth mirrors the increase in social problems that China faces as its economy develops and the disparities between rich and poor multiply. There is little recognition either by the government or citizens of the profession of social work and so no clear idea of what it might achieve. Thus the development of social work in China faces many difficulties among which is a dearth of professionally qualified social workers to teach, and to supervise fieldwork placements. This paper discusses a collaborative MSW programme between the University of Hong Kong and Fudan University in Shanghai. It analyses the growth in professional identity of nine students in the programme undertaking their first supervised fieldwork placement in Shanghai. They were asked to write 500-word statements before and after their placement about their understanding of the role of social workers and their sense of professional identity. An analysis of these statements forms the basis of this article. The article addresses the issue of whether the construction of a professional identity will rest with members of the embryonic profession or with government bureaucrats largely concerned with the maintenance of stability and the management of social change.
[Copyright of Social Work Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02615470601049883]