Using the Hackathon Model in Social Work Education

ABSTRACT

A recent innovation adapted from the world of commercial computer hacking is known as a Hackathon event. Hackathons are characterized by problem-solving in small groups, under time pressure, to develop creative solutions to a challenging problem. This paper presents the evaluation of a Hackathon applied in two courses on trauma-informed practice (one BSW and the other at MSW level). Students (N = 57) developed interventions to address group and community trauma presented in case studies. Social work doctoral students served as judges (N = 5), evaluated the presentations and selected the winning team. The evaluation showed that the students and judges felt that the Hackathon promoted learning, creativity, teamwork and the incorporation of concepts learned in the course. The competitiveness and being judged were viewed as negative aspects by the students and the judges concurred that the competition detracted from the educational experience. More research is needed on how to apply the Hackathon model to other types of social work curricula including the teaching of various research methods. The current COVID-19 pandemic is challenging the social work profession to address its myriad social implications. How to adapt social work practice toward the incorporation of e-therapy and e-consultation might benefit from Hackathon brainstorming.

KEYWORDS:

• Hackathon
• cooperative learning
• social work innovation
• small group technique
• trauma course content

Acknowledgments

The authors received a small grant from the Ben Gurion University unit for the promotion of educational methods. We would like to thank the student judges and want to acknowledge the contribution of Dr. Yael Lin to the success of the Hackathon events.

Author agreement statement

We declare that this manuscript is original, has not been published before, and is not currently being considered for publication elsewhere. We confirm that the manuscript has been read and approved by all authors and that there are no other persons who satisfied the criteria for authorship but are not listed. We further confirm that the order of authors listed in the manuscript has been approved by both of us.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethics approval and consent to participate

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee (The Spitzer Department of Social Work, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Ethics Committee) and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

This article does not contain any studies with animals performed by any of the authors.

Availability of data and materials

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Ben Gurion University.

Notes on contributors

Julie Cwikel

Julie Cwikel is the Chilewich Chair of Social Integration in the Spitzer Department of Social Work in Ben Gurion University of the Negev.  A social epidemiologist, she is the author of the textbook “Social Epidemiology: Strategies for Public Health Activism„ (Columbia University Press, 2005) and over 150 articles and book chapters.  She is the founder and director of BGU's Center for Women's Health Studies and Promotion, which conducts cutting edge research on women's health and provides psychotherapy services that are gender and culturally sensitive and a program that supports new mothers in the first year after the birth of a new child.

Meital Simhi

Meital Simhi MSW, PhD. is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Department of Counseling and School Psychology at UMass Boston.  Her research interests include multi-cultural factors in perinatal mental health.