Please sit so you can talk in small groups

Whose side are you on: Balancing the interests of different partners within professional experience.

Helen McDonald

School of Education

James Cook University

Plan Ongoing challenges and current context Multiple perspectives and rights in

professional experience Ethical dilemmas in professional

experience Conclusion

According to the Principal, Sydney Teachers’ College, 1932

“Students numbers also put pressure on practicing and demonstration schools, so that in some instances, they were overloaded with trainees … More critically, in that it was less open to administrative solutions, there were problems with the quality of school teaching staff appointed to supervise students’ practice, and with the quality of their supervision. (Vick, 2006)

Previous NAFEA conference notes (and Top of the Class):

the shortage of places the variable quality of supervisor/

mentors the inadequacy of funding for

professional experience, including the burden of students financing their own placements away from their homes.

Life for life for students in 21st century

Average 25 hours work per week

Casual positions: No annual leave or sick

leave Less job security No guarantee for the

number of hours they work – variable earnings/ variable hours

Less say – Less pay

Increased number of single parents.

Children will always be first priority-

Centrelink policies

Mature age students supported by partners.

Generation Y

All Australia JCU

Total 844,480 12, 327 (1.55%)

Female 55% 64%Indigenous 1.2% 2.8%Students with disability

3.6% 4.3%

Remote 1.25% 8%

Rural 17% 41%

NESB 3.6% 1.1%

Women in non-traditional areas

20% 14%

Low SES 14% 23%

International 22% 10.8%

Postgrad 25.2% 14.5%

Part-time 30% 25%First-generation uni students

Student groups at JCU: diversity a goal - and an issue

Other factors Students as consumers - universities as

service providers/ businesses Political context

Teacher education - myriad of inquiries Top of class - recommendations to improve quality of

professional experience - government response - increase number of days

Nurse education - Proposed return to hospital-based training

Professional standards

Now the elephants

Multiple perspectives/ multiple stakeholders

industry

universitystudent

Ethics and professional experience placements

Multiple perspectives

Limited placements

High stakes assessment

Conflicting rights

Ethical dilemmas

Over to you: Identify three or four

key stakeholders in field placements and list what you consider their rights are in the field placement context

Where is there a potential for conflict?

Ethical dilemmas

Either doing what is ethically right

a bad outcome or bad effects

results in

Either doing what is ethically wrong

good or at least better outcome or effects

results in

Dilemmas: cases Under what circumstances do we

provide information about student’s past experiences?

Who do we send “good” students?/ Who do we send challenging students?

Is there anything “special” about international or Indigenous students?

Over to you: Spend a couple of

minutes discussing ethical dilemmas you may have faced then decides on one dilemma/ scenario to share with other groups.

Write the dilemma/ scenario down and pass it on to another group

How would you “solve” your new dilemma?

According to St James Centre for Ethics

What are the relevant facts? Which of my values make these facts significant? What assumptions am I making? What are the weaknesses in my own position? Would I be happy for my actions to be open to public scrutiny? Would I be happy if my family knew what I'd done? What will doing this do to my character or the character of my

organisation? What would happen if everybody took this course of action? How would I feel if my actions were to impact upon my child or

parent? Have I really thought through the issues? Have I considered the possibility that the ends may not justify the

means?

If ethics is about practical rather than purely theoretical matters, it should also be understood that it encompasses a general conversation about how people should live a ‘good’ life.

A consideration of ethical questions involves a consideration of the quality and nature of relationships with other people.

Back to the elephant Reconciling different perspectives will only

come through ongoing conversations between all professional experience stakeholders

The ethical danger for those of us “in” professional experience is that we see ourselves as the narrator of the story, rather than just one of the many participants, also able to gain a better understanding of the elephant by hearing the perspective of others

Finally for thought Our duty is to do what is right; but as a

practical matter, we would just as soon have things turn out as well as possible - as Machiavelli says in The Prince

and … without professional experience/ field

placement officers, there would be no professional degrees.