This article examines third year social work students' perceptions of the value of a mandatory, self-help online support group for teaching group work skills. Students overwhelmingly identified the ...group's worth as lying in the mutual support received. They also felt that participating in a live group fostered the translation of group work theory and skills into a concrete environment. Experiential group work is the foundation of group work pedagogy in face-to-face classroom settings. This research suggests that this experience can be meaningfully replicated in a virtual context. Other course activities such as journaling and formal reflection and assessment of group process and dynamics support the integration of group work knowledge and skills promoted through the group experience. It is thus a teaching strategy that instructors of online group work courses might incorporate in the course curriculum.
Evangelical Bible study groups are the most prolific type of small group in American society, with more than 30 million Protestants gathering every week for this distinct purpose, meeting in homes, ...churches, coffee shops, restaurants, and other public and private venues across the country. What happens in these groups? How do they help shape the contours of American Evangelical life? While more public forms of political activism have captured popular and scholarly imaginations, it is in group Bible study that Evangelicals reflect on the details of their faith. Here they become self-conscious religious subjects, sharing the intimate details of life, interrogating beliefs and practices, and articulating their version of Christian identity and culture.In Words upon the Word, James S. Bielo draws on over nineteen months of ethnographic work with five congregations to better understand why group Bible study matters so much to Evangelicals and for Evangelical culture. Through a close analysis of participants' discourse, Bielo examines the defining themes of group life - from textual interpretation to spiritual intimacy and the rehearsal of witnessing. Bielo's approach allows these Evangelical groups to speak for themselves, illustrating Bible study's uniqueness in Evangelical life as a site of open and critical dialogue. Ultimately, Bielo's ethnography sheds much needed light on the power of group Bible study for the ever-evolving shape of American Evangelicalism.
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