Approach to Teaching
Dr. Smoyer has taught in both the undergraduate and graduate programs at the Department of Social Work at Southern Connecticut State University (SCSU). Her pedagogy is informed by anti-racism and harm reduction practices that recognize and name power dynamics and seek to meet students where they are.
Amy's teaching celebrates multiple ways of knowing and learning and encourages movement and participation. Her instruction seeks to engage students in critical thinking and connect research concepts to real-life social work practice. Examples of this approach to teaching include:
The SCSU New Haven Social Justice Work Bike Ride, a 3 hour group experience through New Haven's neighborhoods. This biking ethnography seeks to challenge students' perspectives and ways of knowing while building knowledge about the social justice sites and history of the Elm City.
Team-Based Learning is an approach to group work and critical thinking that begins with what you want the students to be able to do and then works backwards to class activities, assessments, and reading.
Articles about teaching
Smoyer, A. B. & D’Angelo, K (in press). Anti-oppression pedagogy in action: The undergraduate research methods course. Journal of Social Work Education.
Smoyer, A. B., O’Brien, K., & Rodriguez-Keyes, E. (2020). Lessons learned from COVID-19: Being known in online social work classrooms. International Social Work, 63(5) 651-654. https://doi.org/10.1177/0020872820940021
Smoyer, A. B. (2020). Taking Social Work undergraduates inside: The Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program. Journal of Social Work Education, 56(1), 186-192. https://doi.org/10.1080/10437797.2019.1648223
