Delivering an Effective Fieldwork Program Developing Fieldwork Coordinator Leadership Capability

Purpose The purpose of this module is to: look critically at the Deliverer role through an academic leadership lens discover how to enhance your abilities as a Deliverer of fieldwork education to improve the quality of your delivery as it relates to the goal of student learning potentially create space to build other roles.

Learning objectives and plan Learning Outcomes At the end of this session participants will: Apply a risk management framework to support workplace-learning programs. Identify what structures and processes are needed to deliver an effective workplace learning program.

What is the Deliver role?

What are the features of the deliverer role ? Ensures things run smoothly Gets things done Requires productivity Is time- consuming Skill set becomes ingrained Coping with unexpected events Can dominate other roles

Quick Activity Ensuring there are enough placements

Problems that fieldwork coordinators face Cooper et al. (2010, p. 166) identified three categories of problems most typically managed by fieldwork coordinators. Student’s having personal issues. Complaints about the workplace. Student’s behaviour. Add any others that are important to the group to this list Cooper, L., Orell, J., & Bowden, M. (2010). Work Integrated Learning: A guide to effective practice. London: Routledge. Read chapter 7, ‘Managing difficult situations’.

Case study You are the coordinator of the fieldwork placement program for a Bachelor of Teaching program. You have been in this role for about 6 months, having taken over from the previous coordinator. In the yearly cycle of clinical placements the 2nd year students are in the 2nd week of their 4 week placement rotations. In your plan for the week you are going to contact the placement supervisors to ensure that the students are meeting the placement requirements. As you are collecting the list of phone numbers you notice an in your inbox from the Faculty admin officer asking you to call a supervisor running a placement in a large school that takes a large number of placements.

Case study Before you can pick up the phone to call you receive a phone call from the Head of School asking you to urgently contact the same site. The Head of School advises you that they received a phone call from a supervisor who had been desperately trying to contact someone from ‘The University’ for a couple of days. The supervisor had advised the Head of School that the university contact people they had on their list were not answering their phones.

Case study Having reassured the Head of School that you will deal with it, you call the supervisor. She tells you that she has received a report that one of your students has been acting inappropriately with a Year 12 male school student. She feels that the behaviour has exceeded the boundaries of acceptable professional conduct.

Managing this problem Covey’s Four Quadrants

Transactional versus Transformational Leadership TransactionalTransformational Getting the job done Finds a solution quickly to ensure the site and you know how to handle the student and the future of the placement is determined. Builds on the need for meaning Sees this situation in the broader context of managing a fieldwork program and how this reflects on the overall success of the program Swamped in daily affairs Responds to the phone call as it comes in, adds this situation to the list of activities that need to be dealt with. Drops other activities off in response to the time taken to manage this situation Transcends daily affairs Recognises the frequency with which these activities occur and the pattern of response. Is able to build into schedule time for managing these scenarios and has a plan for responding. Confuses causes and symptoms and is concerned with treatment Focuses on finding a solution that will meet the demands of the individuals in the situation Separates causes and symptoms and work prevention Analyses the situation to see what has happened, why it has happened and can implement strategies that deal with underlying problems

Transactional versus Transformational Leadership TransactionalTransformational Relies on human relations to oil human interactions Uses skills in liaising with students, head of school and partners to calm the situation and reassure everyone that you will find a solution Makes full use of human resources Identifies the opportunities for the empowerment of others in the situation to assist in the problem solving. Knows who key people are who can advise with difficult situations. Follows and fulfils role of expectations by striving to work effectively within current system Refers to current processes and policies for appropriate response. Designs and re-designs jobs to achieve over-arching goals Recognises that certain processes were not working effectively and designs processes and policies to guide future practice.

Working in the quadrant of quality and personal leadership For our case study (Worksheet 2): 1.How does this situation reflect on the overall management of the fieldwork program? 2.How often do situations like this occur? Is it likely to happen again? 3.What might be the causes of this situation? 4.Who is impacted by this situation and who can assist in the solution?

Analysing issues that arise “The issue” Student’s conduct on placement Causes Are you jumping to solutions ……

Using risk analysis choose actions Worksheet 3 1.Who are the stakeholders and whose needs are the most vulnerable in this situation? 2.What were the risks in this scenario? 3.For each risk what is the likelihood of a problem occurring and its potential impact on the participants in the program?

Risk analysis for fieldwork education Stakeholder Category of risk StudentPartner Fieldwork coordinator UniversityClient/service user Health, safety and environment Physical, emotional and mental health Health and well- being of employees Own well-being Health and well- being of employees Physical, emotional and mental health Values, Ethics and Institutional Reputation Codes of conduct Future work opportunities Rights as a student Reputation as a service provider, relationship with partners Duty of care to clients and students Personal values, professional codes of conduct Duty of care to student Reputation as an educational institution, relationship with partners Duty of care to students Rights as a receiver of services Business Continuity Ability to secure placements to complete education Ability to provide service Ability to provide fieldwork education program Ability to provide courses Access to services QualityQuality of educationQuality of serviceQuality of student education Quality of service received FinancialCost of attending placement Costs of students to business Performance management Costs of running program Costs of receiving service Compliance - legal and statutory requirements Police checks Immunisation Student registration Common law Agreements Statutory and Common law Statutory and Common law

Exploring risk and potential impact “The issue” Student’s conduct on placement Causes Risk and Impact

Planning actions to address issues Brainstorming and sorting actions

Making it happen JanFebMarAprMayJuneJulyAugSeptOctNovDec Activity 1 Activity 2 Activity 3 Key placement management activities Visits and calls to students on placement Use a Gantt chart to plot planned activities. Identify peaks and troughs in your workload that will affect your capacity to work on planned activities. Choose priorities based on goals.

So what? What might be an action for you as an outcome of this module?

Recommended reading Cooper, L., Orell, J., & Bowden, M. (2010). Work Integrated Learning: A guide to effective practice. London: Routledge. Read chapter 7, ‘Managing difficult situations’. Covey, S. (1994). 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Provo, Utah: Covey Leadership Center.