By Cassandra Hendry, TLS staff writer
In Prof. Kenta Asakura’s classroom, it’s not unusual to see a local actor milling about, getting ready for a performance. From the outside, it may seem that theatre class is about to begin. In reality, Asakura and the actors he works with are preparing for a second-year master’s course in social work.
“One of my signature teaching pedagogies is the use of simulation,” Asakura explains. “I work with actors to assist them in enacting [clinical social work] cases I’ve had in the past.”
To ensure his students are ready to face the world outside of Carleton, he uses actors funded through a grant by the EDC to role-play as clients with his students. While Asakura admits that it can be an anxiety-inducing situation treating a client in front of the class, he says the students who interacted with the actors said it was useful overwhelmingly.
“The only way for us to become comfortable with discomfort is to really dive into it and not be afraid,” he says.
Asakura, who just completed his first year as a faculty member at Carleton, is no stranger to this unique way of teaching social work theories. He has taught as a contract instructor using these methods at his alma mater, the University of Toronto, and also at the Smith College School for Social Work in Massachusetts. With the exception of the last year, Asakura has practiced as a social work clinician for 14 years in his own private practice as well as in group homes, outpatient counselling programs and LGBTQ centres, his area of speciality.
For Asakura, the learning curve wasn’t that steep coming to Carleton as he was able to use his expertise in an academic context with which he was familiar. While he says he’s still getting used to local Ottawa hospitals and services, it’s been going well.
For him, it was a natural progression to use his years of hands-on experience as a teaching tool.
“As a practitioner, this is an important pedagogy. I’d say it’s the most effective way of teaching students how to integrate theories into practice,” he says.
This approach stems from the changing environment of the social work community, he says. More than a decade ago when Asakura was completing his master’s program like his students are today, he says that local employers were able to provide more training for students entering the field.
“Those days are over. Agencies and hospitals are looking for students who are able to provide practice pretty quickly . . . that leaves a lot more responsibility for schools of social work to be able to better prepare our students for practice,” he says.
One of the only stumbling blocks he encountered last year was assuming that his students knew more about assessment in social work, which he says he glossed over. After speaking with fellow Carleton professors and having a year under his belt, he’s revised the syllabus to fit his students’ needs to help them face the professional world soon after they leave.
To find out more about Asakura’s experience using simulation in his social work courses, read his blog here.