Delivering an Effective Fieldwork Program

Delivering an Effective Fieldwork Program

Table of Contents

Introduction

Learning Outcomes

Module Topics

Leadership Approaches to Managing the Delivery of Fieldwork

Academic Leadership: Transactional and Transformational Leadership

Key Stimulus Questions

Using a Risk Management Approach to Guide Actions

Key Stimulus Questions

Strategies to Use in Planning

Ishikawa Diagram

Gantt chart

Practical Activities

Required Reading

References

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Delivering an Effective Fieldwork Program

Delivering an Effective Fieldwork Program

Introduction

Hello and welcome to Delivering an Effective Fieldwork Program

In this module you will explore some leadership principles and tools to assist you in your role as fieldwork coordinator. In particular, the tools provided here will support you to develop effective structures to get the job done. By looking critically at these functions through an academic leadership lens you will be provided with opportunities to enhance your abilities as deliverers of fieldwork education, both to improve the quality of your delivery as it relates to the goal of student learning and potentially create space to build other more strategic functions.

Figure 1: Deliver role from the Integrated Completing Values Framework

LearningOutcomes

On successful completion of this module 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.

Module Topics

The topics we will cover are:

  • Introduction to the Deliverer role
  • Leadership approaches to managing the delivery of fieldwork
  • Academic Leadership: transactional and transformative.
  • Planning the delivery of fieldwork to minimise reactive and time consuming tasks
  • Responding to challenging situations in fieldwork
  • Using risk management approaches to guide actions.

Introduction to the Deliverer Role

The Deliverer role is used to ensure that things are running smoothly and that the things that need to be done are done.The delivery of fieldwork coordination consumes much of the time of the fieldwork coordinator. This role encompasses the day to day activities of ensuring that students are placed in workplaces and that all the structures and processes are in place to ensure the successful completion of the placement. Many of these activities become ingrained in our work, so much so that we cease to acknowledge the skill set needed to fulfil this role. This role also includes the activities of coping with unexpected events that occur day to day. Much of the work day can be consumed by ‘putting out fires’ or handling mini crises. Many fieldwork coordinators would feel that this is an area that they are most experienced in. It is also the area that claims much of the time that could otherwise be given to other roles. People who are strong in the Deliverer role can feel quite comfortable dealing with the day to day task focussed internal activities and miss opportunities to build skills other areas.

When using the Deliverer role you will be:

  • Managing across schools, departments and external WIL providers.
  • Managing projects.
  • Setting clear goals and objectives for yourself and others.
  • Organising work to be done.
  • Productive, getting the job done.
  • Managing your time and stress.
  • Coordinating activities needed to deliver the fieldwork program.
  • Motivating others.
  • Maintaining and providing structure.
  • Maintaining control.

When you overuse or inappropriately use your Deliverer role there will be:

  • Perpetual exertion.
  • Human exhaustion.
  • Undiscerning regulation.
  • Ironbound tradition.
  • Little progress.
  • Offence to individuals.
  • Lack of cohesion.

Leadership Approaches to Managing the Delivery of Fieldwork

The delivery of fieldwork involves many different processes to successfully place a student in a workplace learning experience. If we focus on the task of delivering students to a placement it often involves a cycle through the following processes:

  • Planning the placement activities and the placements required to meet the student’s learning objectives.
  • Ensuring that the number of placements for each student is appropriate to their needs.
  • Ensuring students and supervisors have been prepared for the placement.
  • Collaborating with other team members e.g. admin staff.
  • Coordinating the allocation of students to the placement.
  • Monitoring the placement to ensure that the placement is progressing according to the objectives.
  • Supporting placement providers during the placement by regular communication.
  • Supporting students during the placement.
  • Trouble shooting issues that arise during the placement.
  • Follow-up after the placement to collect grades and evaluation sheets.

In this cycle, described above, problems often arise for fieldwork coordinators and it is natural to feel that you would need to urgently identify an appropriate solution. Typically, these issues or problems are what give the fieldwork coordinator the feeling they are constantly putting out fires and, consequently, managing in a reactive way. However, rather than focus on how to manage problems in this module we will identify the factors that contribute to these situations occurring, risks associated with issues and proactive structures and processes that can be implemented to limit the likelihood of problems arising.

Cooper et al. (2010, p. 166) identified three categories of problems most typically managed by fieldwork coordinators. These are:

  1. Student’s having personal issues.
  2. Complaints about the workplace.
  3. Student’s behaviour.

You may find that there are additional problems that you commonly have to manage.

Steven Covey (1994) in his book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People has identified 4 quadrants that people’s daily activities fall into. You may recognise that your initial response to putting out fires as a fieldwork coordinator falls into Quadrant 1, where you are dealing with a mini crisis that needs immediate action. Covey would argue that most of your time should be spent in Quadrant 2 if you are to be the most effective. This quadrant is the quadrant of quality and personal leadership.

Figure 2:Covey's Four Quadrants (fieldwork coordinators tend to spend most time in quadrant 1)

Academic Leadership: Transactional and Transformational Leadership

Using academic leadership in the Deliverer role involves planning and implementing strategies to predict and manage situations. Transformation and transactional leadership approaches are useful frameworks with which to explore the Deliverer role. Transformational leadership is about being inspiring, visionary, adaptive and paying close attention to team members’ potential whereas transactional leadership invests in more control oriented systems to gain compliance and ensuring that the team meets its performance targets (Bass et al., 2003).Situations such as putting out fires typically require both transactional and transformational responses. It is easy, however, as mentioned before to focus only on the transactional aspects of fieldwork coordination. Another way to think about these ideas is that transactional responses tend to be reactive whereas transformational can be more proactive.

Table 1: Transactional versus Transformational Leadership

Transactional / Transformational
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
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.

Adapted from Vilkinas, T., Leask, B., & Ladyshewsky, R. (2009). Academic leadership: Fundamental building blocks. Strawberry Hills, New South Wales: Australian Learning and Teaching Council.

Key Stimulus Questions

Using these principles of transactional and transformative leadership described above we can explore some questions related to our own practice. Think of a recent issue that has arisen in your fieldwork program and answer the following questions. These questions ask us to think at a transformational level:

  1. How does your situation reflect on the overall management approach you are using in your fieldwork program?
  2. How often do situations like this occur? Is it likely to happen again?
  3. What might be the causes of your situation/issue?
  4. Who is impacted by the situation and who can assist you with a solution?

We can also consider our knowledge and capacity to respond to situations. How well are we developing a body of knowledge that helps us to know how to react in these types of situations?

Using a Risk Management Approach to Guide Actions

Cooper, Orell & Bowden (2010) support adopting a risk management approach to managing fieldwork placements. A risk management approach is particularly suited to the Deliverer function. These authors note that fieldwork is inherently associated with risk for its stakeholders. However, before we consider risk management in relation to fieldwork we must clarify what is meant by risk and risk management. Below are some definitions from the Australian/New Zealand Standard AS/NZS 4360:2004: Risk Management:

Risk – ‘the chance of something happening that will have an impact upon objectives’ (AS/NZS 4360:2004)

Risk Management — ‘the culture, process and structures that are directed towards realizing potential opportunities whilst managing adverse effects’ (AS/NZS 4360:2004)

Risk Management Process — ‘The systematic application of management policies, procedures and practices to the tasks of communicating, establishing the context, identifying, analysing, evaluating, treating, monitoring and reviewing risk’ (AS/NZS 4360:2004))

It is important to note that risk refers to the chance of something happening. Fieldwork education is associated with rich learning opportunities to prepare students for their professional work.By its nature, however, fieldwork education is associated with risk. Factors such as the potential impact and likelihood of different risks need to be considered. For example, in fieldwork coordination a risk can be the cancellation of a placement. This may have a low-mod-high impact (depending on the availability of alternative placements) and may be not very likely through to occur (depending on the discipline and type of placement).

A useful way to analyse risk is to consider the categories of risk and the risk appetite. The risk appetite of an organisation reflects their willingness to take risks to achieve the benefits of the program. Categories of risk can be given different priorities as may the risk appetites be different for the different partners involved in fieldwork education. In the following interlinked questions consider the category of risk and examples related to fieldwork education.

Key Stimulus Questions

  1. Who are the stakeholders and whose needs are the most vulnerable in fieldwork education?
  2. What were the risks in your fieldwork program?
  3. For each risk what is the likelihood of a problem occurring and its potential impact on the participants in the program?

These questions lead us to consider risk from the point of view of the consequences of the situation itself and its impact (current issue) and from the perspective of the risk associated with how effectively we manage the problem (future relationships).

Table 2 maps the usual key stakeholders in fieldwork programs across the horizontal axis against the categories of risk considered by organisations on the vertical axis. You may be able to add to this table from your knowledge of your placement program.

Table 2: Fieldwork Stakeholders and Categories of Risk

Stakeholder
Category of risk / Student / Partner / Fieldwork coordinator / University / Client/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
Quality / Quality of education / Quality of service / Quality of student education / Quality of student education / Quality of service received
Financial / Cost 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 / Agreements Statutory and Common law / Statutory and Common law / Statutory and Common law
Cross-cultural / Physical, emotional and mental health (cultural safety)
Right to have culture valued and respected / Right to have culture respected and valued
Duty of care to clients and students / Personal values, duty of care to students, clients and their communities / Equal Opportunity Law
Reputation, relationships with communities
Duty of care for students / Physical, emotional and mental health (cultural safety)
Right to have culture valued and respected

Strategies to Use in Planning

Planning takes time but it is time well spent because through planning you can improve your overall effectiveness and move your leadership into Quadrant 2 of Covey’s model (page 4) and toward more a transformational leadership style. Below are two strategies to assist you in planning as a fieldwork coordinator; the Ishikawa Diagram and the Gantt chart.

Ishikawa Diagram

Visit Wikipedia to find out about the Ishikawa Diagram ( Ishikawa Diagram is also known as the Fishbone Diagram and is a pictorial method for illustrating perspectives on an issue and for deepening understanding. It was developed by Kauro Ishikawa (1969). It is a useful method for investigating a problem within a fieldwork program. The Ishikawa Diagram is a useful way for mapping potential sources or causes of the problem, and then investigating each one in more depth, with the aim of coming up with some resolution. Sometimes there can be benefits from completing this task in a group as often a broader range of ideas are generated.

The problem is specified at the right end of the diagram or backbone. The possible causes of the problem are drawn as bones off of the main backbone. The fieldwork coordinator can use the team to brain storm possible sources/causes to build the bone structure of the diagram.As much information is provided as possible in order to detail the problem.

The Ishikawa diagram has its roots in the quality movement and as such can be a useful problem-solving tool for fieldwork coordinators to improve outcomes for student learning. From the information obtained from this analysis, a change process may then follow as the group works towards implementing action to eliminate the root problem.

Figure 3: Ishikawa Diagram

Gantt chart

Once you have identified the causes of an issue using the various approaches provided above you are in a position to plan actions that will help you to manage the issue. One of the principles of a leadership approach is that you will enact processes that will reduce the need for reactive responses. Often generating these actions requires attention to the systems we use and our interactions with others. These types of actions take time to address so we need to plan how we are going to achieve them.

A Gantt chart is a kind of bar chart that illustrates a project plan, including scheduling of the project milestones to enable the achievement of the desired outcomes.Visit Wikipedia to find out more about Gantt charts. (

You can also download free Gantt chart software. (

Figure 4: Sample Gantt chart

Jan / Feb / Mar / Apr / May / June / July / Aug / Sept / Oct / Nov / Dec
Activity 1
Activity 2
Activity 3
Key placement management activities / Visits and calls to students on placement

When developing your chart you should map your planned activities, when they are to start and when you hope to achieve the outcome by. You should also map the peaks and troughs in your workload so that you can be realistic about when you will have time to work on your planned activities.