Preparing social workers to be lifelong learners: Use of problem-based learning as a training component in the social work curriculum

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.