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Journal of Social Work Education
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The Centrality of Social Presence in
Online Teaching and Learning in Social
Work
Kia J. Bentley, Mary C. Secret & Cory R. Cummings
Published online: 13 Jul 2015.
To cite this article: Kia J. Bentley, Mary C. Secret & Cory R. Cummings (2015) The Centrality of Social
Presence in Online Teaching and Learning in Social Work, Journal of Social Work Education, 51:3,
494-504
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10437797.2015.1043199
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The Centrality of Social Presence in Online Teaching
and Learning in Social Work
Kia J. Bentley, Mary C. Secret, and Cory R. Cummings
Social presence is the extent to which persons are perceived to be real and are able to be
authentically known and connected to others in mediated communication. A full appreciation of
the concept offers social work educators an antidote to skepticism of online learning and provides an
avenue for modeling the development and maintenance—indeed, the transformation—of collabora-
tive helping relationships essential to practice. This article opens with a discussion of the place of
social presence in its larger conceptual, theoretical, and empirical context and presents identified
components along with concrete examples for effectively building social presence into online
teaching. We conclude with a discussion of real-world challenges and tensions and pose a series
of questions for future research.
Social presence refers to the extent to which persons are perceived to be real and are able to be
authentically known and truly connected to others in mediated communication. For online
teaching and learning environments, scholars agree that social presence is a particularly powerful
concept because of its seemingly central influence on teaching and learning success.
Specifically, social presence has been both conceptually and empirically linked to the quality
of online learning, including levels of student participation, satisfaction, and student engagement
(Cobb, 2009; Cui, Lockee, & Meng, 2013; Garrison & Arbaugh, 2007).
Social presence in online learning has particular relevance for social work education. The
exponential and projected growth in online teaching and learning in social work (Coe Regan &
Youn, 2008; Raymond, 2005; Robbins, 2013; Vernon, Vakalahi, Pierce, Pittman-Munke, &
Adkins, 2009), coupled with accumulating evidence of the effectiveness of distance education
(Frederickson, Reed, & Clifford, 2005; Means, Toyama, Murphy, Bakia, & Jones, 2009; Woehle
& Quinn, 2009; York, 2008), means that we can conclude that online teaching and learning is
here to stay. However, despite the increasing prominence of distance education in social work
programs, many faculty members remain skeptical of the online environment as a platform
(Allen & Seaman, 2011) to transmit social work practice knowledge, skills, and values (Coe
Regan, 2005). Much of this skepticism generates from faculty members’struggle to reconcile
how teaching “use of self”and relationship development, commonly recognized as the core of
Accepted: January 2014
Kia J. Bentley is professor, Mary C. Secret is associate professor, and Cory R. Cummings is a doctoral candidate and
research associate at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Address correspondence to Kia J. Bentley, School of Social Work, Virginia Commonwealth University, 1000 Floyd
Avenue, Richmond, VA 23284, USA. E-mail: kbentley@vcu.edu
Journal of Social Work Education, 51: 494–504, 2015
Copyright © Council on Social Work Education
ISSN: 1043-7797 print / 2163-5811 online
DOI: 10.1080/10437797.2015.1043199
Downloaded by [Virginia Commonwealth University Libraries] at 09:33 14 July 2015
social work education, can be accomplished successfully when student and instructor are miles
apart, connected only though inanimate objects such as a computer and the Internet (Coe Regan,
2005; Robbins, 2013; Raymond, 2005; Vernon et al., 2009). However, familiarity with the
concept of social presence—and gaining the requisite knowledge and skills to intentionally
enhance it in online environments—may assure educators that there is not only the means to
teach and model the development and maintenance of both collaborative and helping relation-
ships essential to social work practice but also the potential to enhance, reconstruct, and even
transform these relational foundations of social work education and practice.
This article opens with a discussion of the place of social presence in its larger conceptual and
theoretical context, namely, constructivism and the community of inquiry model, which are both
linked to technological applications through the computer supported collaborative learning
model (CSCL). Then the article briefly explores the evolution of definitions of social presence
and discusses identified components of and cues in emotional expression, open communication,
and group cohesion. Finally, concrete ideas and examples for building social presence into
online teaching and learning experiences in social work education are presented. The article
closes with a discussion of real-world challenges, tensions, and dilemmas that arise when
attempting to balance the nurturing of online communities with high academic rigor and the
goals of social work education.
CONCEPTUAL AND THEORETICAL CONTEXT
Perhaps the place to start is with an acknowledgment that the concept of social presence is
deeply rooted in the experiential and the subjective and thus may be inherently amorphous. It
derives from more general notions of human presence, human connection, and immediacy,
which are “necessarily relational”and convey a “relationship of caring and responsibility”
(LaMendola, 2010, p. 109). Important for contrast, we will note here that the opposite of
presence is absence, meaning distant, not attentive, preoccupied, or missing. With social
presence as an online phenomenon, we will see that awareness of “the other”and perceived
proximal closeness, whether physical, emotional, or philosophical, will still be key.
Constructivism
Kehrwald (2008, p. 90) argued that online learning provides an “excellent venue for teaching
and learning approaches derived from constructivist epistemology,”which says that learning is a
combination of the mental processes of an individual as well as more “social activities.”The
bottom line is that we construct knowledge and meaning though activity and experience. He
noted that the importance of “connectivity”and “interpersonal interaction”between and among
participants in online learning logically sets up ripe opportunities for “mutual modification of
attitudes, skills, beliefs”(p. 90). It is this modification of attitudes, skills, and beliefs that is
recognized as transformative learning.
Learning, approached from a constructivist perspective, then becomes dependent on environ-
ment. Not a static, fixed understanding of environment, but environment that is dynamic,
interactional, and dependent on subjective exchanges. Knowledge building requires active
participation in these environments. Specific to our topic here, it is important to consider how
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these environments are fostered in online formats and how space is created for the expression of
subjective and affective experiences in the learning process.
Community of Inquiry Model
Building from the previous discussion of environments and social exchanges, the community
of inquiry (COI) model provides us with a framework for conceptualizing the interaction of
different dimensions of our subjective selves as we participate in a learning environment—or,
more consistent with this model, learning community. This model suggests that three ele-
ments interact in complex ways to create the online community learning experience for
students (Garrison, 2007). The first of these elements is social presence, as defined earlier
and the subject of this article. The second is the notion of teaching presence, which refers to
the structure and processes for learning, including creation of a plan for learning, direct
teaching of content, and basic facilitation of group discussion. Cognitive presence refers to
the more nuanced ways that students are led to deeper or higher levels of learning through
strategies that help students explore, integrate, critically reflect on, clarify, analyze, and come
to resolution about new knowledge (Darabi, Arrastia, Nelson, Cornille, & Liang, 2011).
Although beyond the scope of this article, current research is attempting to clarify the
intricate relationships among these three forces—acknowledged to overlap (Garrison,
Cleveland-Innes, & Fung, 2010; Shea & Bidjerano, 2012)—for optimum balance. For
example, what is the influence of teaching presence on social and cognitive presence, or is
social presence a “necessary precursor”to cognitive presence? Within this COI model,
emphasis is placed on “fostering a connection with other learners and the instructor”(Tolu
& Evans, 2013, p. 46) in support of shared learning experiences. In negotiating this connec-
tion, it is important for online educators to reflexively consider the role of social presence,
both in course design and virtual interaction.
Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL)
Consistent with the emphasis that constructivism and the community of inquiry model places on
interaction and learning, CSCL provides us with a model of application that joins pedagogic
theory and technological advances in support of shared learning experiences. It is specifically
concerned with the practicality and logistics of how social learning is translated into the virtual
environment. This model explores the dynamics of shared learning environments that are created
and sustained using the medium of computers and advancing technologies. As Stahl,
Koschmann, and Suthers (2014) identified, “The goal for design in CSCL is to create artifacts,
activities and environments that enhance the practices of group meaning making”(p. 489).
CSCL challenges us to consider how we can translate group processes that are vital to traditional
classroom learning to virtual classroom environments. For example, Graham and Misanchuk
(2004) proposed three stages that need to be considered in establishing successful computer-
mediated learning groups: creating groups, structuring learning activities, and facilitating group
interactions. The CSCL framework shifts our attention to the technological medium as a focal
point through which shared learning interactions transpire (Remesal & Colomina, 2013). This
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entails purposeful and strategic choices surrounding synchronous and asynchronous tools for
course and project design and conscientious attention to social presence through different user
interfaces.
DEFINITIONAL EVOLUTION
As we have noted, social presence in online or other mediated environments refers to an
individual’s ability to demonstrate her or his state of being in a virtual space and, as
Kehrwald (2008) put it, to signal to others her or his “availability”for interpersonal transactions.
Because communication exchanges in online environments are essentially mediated by technol-
ogy of some kind, social presence may represent the degree to which experiences seem
unmediated. In the early literature on social presence, social psychologists used the phrase
“degree of salience”(or significance) of the other person in mediated communication as a
definitional starting point, and they stressed the capacity of the medium to transmit or convey
nonverbal information (e.g., Short, Williams, & Christie, 1976). Later scholars have noted the
increasing focus on relational aspects of social presence—for example, the perceived “tangibi-
lity”and “proximity”of others. Now, more and more, a focus on social presence is used in
relation to the affective connections and feelings of community that exist in mediated commu-
nication (Kehrwald, 2008; Lowenthal, 2009). Very recently, Sung and Mayer (2012) offered an
empirically derived five-facet dimensional definition of social presence that includes social
respect, social sharing, open-mindedness, social identity, and intimacy. These refinements are
one way in which clearer distinctions are being made between social presence and the related
concepts of cognitive presence and teaching presence in the COA model.
Definitions are also suggested by looking at measures of social presence. Reviews of several
of these measures (Cobb, 2009; Kreijins, Kirschner, Jochems, & van Buuren, 2011) suggest
social presence relates to comfort levels with respect to communication, perceptions of the sense
of community, the acknowledgment of others’points of view, and the absence of impersonal
discussions—all of which are critical aspects of social work education. Consistent across these
emerging definitions is that social presence in online environments is said to be performative.
That is, it is conveyed by visible activities such as posting, commenting, responding, and
participation in group and community activities, as we will see below. These are tangible,
emotive, and community-building activities that social work educators can embed in their online
classes to ensure quality interactions in cyberspace.
BUILDING AND MAINTAINING SOCIAL PRESENCE
Course Design
Aragon (2003) offered a plethora of excellent suggestions for enhancing social presence from a
course design perspective. He encouraged, for example, several strategies that have been success-
fully employed by the authors, including the development of video welcome and lesson overview
messages, and he encouraged students to offer up personal profiles with pictures. We note that course
management systems, often used in online course delivery such as Blackboard, have moved toward
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discussion-board platforms that allow threaded conversations to look more Facebook-like—that is,
each student comment is immediately physically juxtaposed to a headshot of that student, and all
comments are easily viewed in chronological order. Aragon also encouraged the use of collaborative
learning activities, including group projects or other assignments that get students to search for
content, share it, and then solicit reactions to it. Indeed, this type of activity is central to our online
courses where “search, summarize, and share”assignments or weekly collaborative learning groups
are regularly used. In the search, summarize, and share assignments, students go to the Internet and
find compelling articles or websites on a certain theme or question and post them (with a brief
introduction) for their peers to view and offer their own emotional and intellectual reactions to it.
They also create group wiki pages on one course topic and then cross-view and critique each other’s
work. In the collaborative learning groups, students work in small groups (3–5 students) to respond,
on a weekly basis, to a series of discussion questions generated from the assigned readings. Social
presence is heightened by the nature of the questions, especially ones that call for case study analysis
and the sharing of related personal or professional experiences. There is the clear expectation
(indeed, requirement) that students interact with one another around these postings. Here are several
examples:
●Take an inventory of your assumptions about what it is like to be 85 and older. What are
your biggest fears? What do you think would be the best part of reaching that age? Choose
one of the cases (Margaret Davis, Bina Patel, or Pete Mullin) at the beginning of chapter 10
and discuss how religion, spirituality, philosophy of life, culture, personality traits, plus
your own assumptions about what it is like to be 85 or older, would influence how you
would work with that individual at this life stage.
●As we move from the focus on individuals to the focus on families, review the three film
clips on Piaget, Kohlberg, and Erikson and reflect back on the cognitive, moral, and
psychosocial stages of development. Share with your group members the following:
✓There has been much criticism about the Eurocentric nature of these three perspectives
of development. What is the basis of such criticism? Provide an informed opinion (i.e.,
use support from the literature) as to whether or not, and to what degree, you think these
developmental perspectives can advance economic and social justice and help us under-
stand the forms and mechanisms of oppression and discrimination.
✓Which of these stages has been the most helpful to you in understanding yourself?
Why? What in particular about these stages of development will be most helpful to you
in your practice as a social worker? Why?
●Post here your good argument for or against prescription-writing privileges for social
workers. Feel free to cite the literature (use textbook and database searches for support)
and, if possible, draw from your experiences. Be sure not to denigrate other professions.
After you have posted your argument, let your colleagues argue the other side of the coin.
Be kind, and think critically.
●Describe a situation, real or hypothetical, where you might feel justified in supporting
involuntary medication of a client. Can you also describe a challenging scenario in which
you would not support a coercive medication strategy? Reflect on any personal or profes-
sional values at play, or maybe even in conflict. Reflect on any connection between your
situation and the experiences that Dr. Kogut shared in his podcast.
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Instructors, according to Aragon (2003), should themselves contribute to discussion boards
frequently and thoughtfully, including sharing personal stories and experiences. One instructor
varies her posting patterns across the semester in an attempt to find balance between over-
involvement and underinvolvement, and another establishes an all-class discussion board for
ongoing instructor–student interaction (see Table 1).
Components and Their Cues
Social presence has been behaviorally described as relating to a “constellation of cues”in the
three general categories bulleted below (Short, Williams, & Christie, 1976, p. 157). Here they
are, along with ways that students and instructors can build, convey, or detect these dimensions
of social presence in an online environment. Mediums may include discussion boards,
announcements, e-mails, and, where relevant, in content and lessons themselves. Our approach
to posting across these domains reflects an intentional effort to boost these cues of social
presence, as detailed by Lowenthal (2009) and others.
●Affective responses such as the expression of emotion, humor, and self-disclosure as seen
in the use of “paralanguage”such as emoticons, exaggerated punctuations, unique
TABLE 1
Design Elements and Examples
Course Design Elements (Aragon, 2003) Examples From Authors’Course
Welcome video and overview messages: Encourage
students to offer personal profiles with pictures and
thoughtful participation throughout the semester
“Be sure to introduce yourselves by posting a brief intro
and response to the ‘Ice Breaker’on the appropriate
discussion board. Upload a picture, or a brief audio or
video, if you like, by attaching a file.”
Collaborative learning activities and group projects “Search, summarize and share”:“Find a link and visit at
least three links from your colleagues.. .”
Create group wiki pages: “Your respective task is to work
together using the ‘Groups’features in Blackboard to
create an attractive, approachable wiki page at the
course’s wiki site.”
Group contract: Provide a rubric to help students anticipate
and work through issues encountered in group work.
Course synthesis: “I will post a synthesis of the course. . .
and I will ask you to edit it. . . I would love for you to
make the course syllabus that I am writing real . . .when
you are all done with it, I will send it to you all so you
have a record of your course.”
Thoughtful and frequent contributions to discussion
boards: Setting the tone, sharing personal stories and
experiences, giving context
“Discussion via Blackboard will be a key avenue for
learning and sharing.”
“I’m interested. . . this is my area. . .my dissertation was. . .”
“I’m just coming back from my trip. . . where I was at the
Group for the Advancement of Doctoral Education
conference. . .”
“. . .which happens to be my birthday.”
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spellings; the explicit use of feeling words such as love, furious, anxious, perplexed; the
expression of values, beliefs, and attitudes; teasing, cajoling, or understatement; or any
expression of vulnerability or risk taking.
This is good advice beyond the course! LOL!
Thank you, thank you, thank you for your work on the wikis! WOW! I am making my way
through all the links and videos and texts and learning a lot. Wonderful positive view of aging.
Hope you don’t mind if I share it with some of my friends since all of us are aging!!
●Open and interactive communication, such as asking probing questions; expressing agree-
ment or disagreement with others; giving affirmations or praise or encouragement; offering
advice on specific situations; directly referring to others’comments or quoting others’
posts; or offering self-reflections,
Can you actually see yourself developing and presenting psychoeducational content to clients?
Can you see yourself doing this in collaboration with other providers? With clients and families
themselves? What in the text readings or in the interview with Joe encourages you to do it and
what reservations do you have? Do you have any relevant personal or professional experiences to
share?
Claire, great follow-up with your group member Ashley. And great sharing of personal experi-
ences with rural school systems to bring perspective and insight to the education discussion.
Margaret, excellent response to Tierra. You captured the essence of the assignment when you
asked her to dig a little deeper re her uncle’s death and the issue around “breakage”in such strong
families.
Keep up the great work on the discussion boards. . .Feel free to affirm your classmate’s work as
well as to (lovingly) pose questions (rhetorical or otherwise) that will push them (and all of us) to
think critically.
●Cohesive responses, which are responses that contribute to connecting and sustaining
relationships such as referring to others by name; offering personal greetings; referring to
group as “us,”“we,”or “us”; explicitly inviting feedback; or sharing interesting tangential
information or experiences.
Lauren, watching your video I was reminded of experiences and reflections that I have had over
the span of this course. Unfortunately, I have also worked with a case where there was misuse of
medication by another family member. However, in my case it was my client that was suspected
of taking the pain medications of a dying family member. It is really difficult to see and to respond
to as the case manager! I liked your suggestion of educating the whole family about the client’s
medications and what they help treat for her and the intense pain that she experiences (student
comment).
I want to thank you for your hard work. ..thank you for your commitment to the online learning
process. . .to rely so heavily on your colleagues for discussion. (Instructor comment)
Yes, important reflections. I think we all just need to watch our (sometimes over) generalizations
sometimes. Be aware of the assumptions that they reflect and be able to identify how we came to
believe what we do. This is the essence of critical thinking. (Instructor comment)
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We need to be effective collaborators.. .we need to be an effective resource for clients.. .
(Instructor comment)
Thanks to all of you for this important thread. It tells me you all are indeed putting on the multiple
lens of “partnership perspective”and “social work perspective”and “critical perspective”and
“social justice perspective”and trying to figure out what you see when you look at populations
other than adults with serious mental illness through those lens, like kids who struggle with
emotional and behavioral problems, people with intellectual disabilities, and court-mandated
clients. How do we embrace those principles with different kinds of clients? This is good. This
is what we are supposed to do.:-)
Seaba and Kekwaletswe (2012) stressed the importance of considering how to foster student
participation with social presence online as vital to “forming social connections in the learning
context”(p. 129). Considering all of these components and cues can provide a framework for the
instructor to engage in strategic “use of self”in role-modeling skills to support online social
presence in the learning environment.
Assessing Success
Online instructors can informally assess the level of social presence in their courses by posing a
series of questions to themselves or even to students. To what extent was communication
characterized by the cues discussed above? To what extent did students offer hints to their
identities beyond “student”? What were levels of sharing around their personal histories (their
culture, education, experience)? How much did you get to know the unique personality of
individual students (their attitudes, demeanor, and sense of humor)? How much sharing was
there around their personal circumstances (location, family situation, professional contexts)? To
what extent did students talk about what they were learning from each other? Did you as an
instructor offer or create these opportunities for social presence to thrive? How much student
appreciation for peer sharing was expressed? Instructor reflections on these questions—espe-
cially at midterm or at the end of semester—seem to quickly point to needed revisions for
crafting course activities or discussion board questions for future classes toward the nurturance
of social presence. Experience suggests that posting a summative question directly to students at
the end of the semester explicitly eliciting thoughts and feelings about course content and peer
exchanges can produce such a plethora of appreciative comments that may very well assuage
any skepticism about the power of online environment to support interpersonal communications.
Here is one such easily adaptable question used by the senior author to help cement the teaching
and learning of a semester online:
Post here any reflections you have about the most important aspects of your learning for the
semester. What really resonated for you? What do you think will be the most useful? What have
you learned about the power of sharing stories, experiences and resources with your peers and what
are the implications of that for your professional development? What will you do to continuing
learning and growing in knowledge and skills related to social work and psychopharmacology? How
can you maintain the values and philosophy around recovery and partnership that were integral to the
course?
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Challenges, Tensions, and Dilemmas
The most obvious challenge in building social presence in online education is
appreciating the tension between the need to set high academic standards and yet maintain
a milieu of a supportive, relaxed, and accepting community of learners. Expectations for
participation in online activities and discussion boards are typically quite high, and students
have to be held accountable for them, even though instructors may be trying to decrease
distance and share power with them, as suggested by the contemporary learning theories
discussed here. Issues of power and authority must be balanced with the values of commu-
nity and co-construction. Although evaluation and grading is inevitable, grading rubrics
developed as a class project, collaborative learning group reflection papers, and group
member or self-assessments are tools that can both strengthen social presence and help
balance the power differential.
The other challenge may be less obvious. Social presence is associated with the perception of
distance—or lack thereof—between individuals in interaction; the reality is that no matter what,
there is “space”between the participants. Space exists between participants in telephone and in
face-to-face communications as well as in online environments; physical presence is no assur-
ance that misinterpretations, miscommunications, or emotional distance will be absent. Because
social presence is not exclusive to online environments but a condition of all human interaction,
the concept also has relevance for more traditional classroom teaching and learning environ-
ments. In that space between participants, especially in social work, we understand that all
exchanges are subject to cognitive and emotional interpretations and meaning-making by us
humans, whose motivations and personal contexts are complicated and certainly not fully known
or likely even knowable. We do the best we can to reject isolationism and egocentricity in online
learning environments, and instead we embrace meaningful interaction and shared intellectual
community.
FUTURE RESEARCH AND CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
We have alluded to several avenues of future research on social presence throughout
this article: There is continuing research on the relationship of social presence to other
dimensions of teaching and learning, including cognitive presence and teaching presence;
there is research related to defining the cues and expanding the components of social
presence; there is research on the measurement of social presence. Future research might
examine which are the most effective or powerful techniques available to build social
presence. How much overlap is there between strategies that build social presence and
those that enhance student engagement and quality online education in general? Here the
efforts of the initiative called “Quality Matters”may be especially relevant. Quality Matters,
a respected national consortium of organizations and educators concerned with defining and
upholding quality in online education, has recently promulgated empirically derived stan-
dards of quality that they make available to their subscribers. Of note is that of their eight
major categories, two relate explicitly to student engagement (Legon & Runyon, 2007;
Quality Matters, 2013):
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●Meaningful interaction between the instructor and students, among students, and between
students and course materials is employed to motivate students and foster intellectual
commitment and personal development.
●Course navigation and the technology employed in the course foster student engagement
and ensure access to instructional materials and resources.
As these standards evolve throughout the years, we expect to see a more prominent place for
social presence given the growing database, discussed earlier in the article, on the positive
effects of social presence across several dimensions of learning.
However, we started the article with the argumentthattheconceptofsocialpresencewas
relevant for online social work education in particular because of its potential to truly
transform learning in ways especially pertinent to the learning needs of our students and
the professional demands of our discipline, which are centered in connective capabilities,
interpersonal exchange, shared problem-solving, and collaboration with peers and other
providers. Thus it is fair to conclude with suggestions for future research that speak to all
that. For example, how does social presence influence perceptions of the importance of peer
collaborationindecisionmakingineverydayreal-world practice, or on professional devel-
opment in general? What effect does social presence have on the deep appreciation of diverse
thought and experience? How does social presence relate to the meaning of “use of self”by
students? How are the assets of social presence translated in to the development of practice
skills or excellence in practice? These are both fair and vital questions to pose in this
burgeoning area in the scholarship of teachingasweseektomorecloselyconnecthowwe
teachsocialworkwithwhatsocial workers actually do.
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