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.