Final Assignment Question

Please see the files attached

Due Date: 27/01/2020 (6:00 pm Darwin, Northern Territory Time)

Words: 3000 words (excluding list of references).

References: Minimum 12 Academic References (minimum of 10 from the reference list)

Format: Academic essay format and structure

Theme font: Times New Roman, Arial or Century Gothic

Font size: 12

Alignment: Justify

Line spacing: 1.5

Referencing style: CDU’s 6th APA

Task: This assignment provides students with the opportunity to showcase their in-depth knowledge in areas of community development or international humanitarian assistance and development by demonstrating their understanding of the relationship between core theoretical concepts and practical realities. Students will explain the concept of work integrated learning (WIL) and investigate the role and purpose of WIL in higher education based on Food Bank NT’s practice placement experience in their chosen field of practice. The argumentation will address benefits of WIL as well as challenges encountered in WIL. Students are expected to draw on academic theories and frameworks and may refer to their personal placement experience (Food Bank NT) where relevant. The essay must contain a main thesis/argument and make use of a paragraph structure, providing clear sub-arguments that support the main thesis/argument.

Reference List: Minimum of 10 references must be used from the list.

· Bates, L. (2005). Building a bridge between university and employment: Work-integrated learning. Brisbane, Australia: Queensland Parliamentary Library. Retrieved from

https://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/documents/explore/researchpublications/researchbriefs/2005/200508

· Binder, J. F., Baguley, T., Crook, C., & Miller, F. (2015). The academic value of internships: Benefits across disciplines and student backgrounds. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 41, 73-82.

· Choy, S. (2011). Partnerships between universities and workplaces: some challenges for work-integrated learning. Studies in Continuing Education, 33(2).

· Clark, L., Rowe, A., Cantori, A., Bilgin, A., & Mukuria, V. (2016). The power dynamics and politics of survey design: measuring workload associated with teaching, administering and supporting work-integrated learning courses. Studies in Higher Education, 41(6), 1055-1073.

· Crossman, J. E. (2010). International experience and graduate employability: stakeholder perception on the connection. Higher Education, 59(5), 599-613.

· Engstrom, D. (2007). A Broadened Horizon: The Value of International Social Work Internships. Social Work Education, 26(2), 136-150.

· Ferns, S, Campbell, M., Zegward, K. (2014). Work integrated learning In Zeegwaard, K. (2014). Work Integrated Learning in the Curriculum (pp. 1-6 . Milperra, Australia: HERDSA.

· Jackson, D. (2015). Employability skill development in work-integrated learning: Barriers and best practice. Studies in Higher Education, 40(2), 350-367.

· Jackson, D., & Collings, D. (2018). The influence of Work-Integrated Learning and paid work during studies on graduate employment and underemployment. Higher Education, 76(3), 403-425.

· Jackson, D., & Collings, D. (2018). The influence of Work-Integrated Learning and paid work during studies on graduate employment and underemployment. Higher Education, 76(3), 403-425.

· Jackson, D., & Wilton, N. (2016). Developing career management competencies among undergraduates and the role of work-integrated learning. Teaching in Higher Education, 21(3), 266-286.

· Lau, F. A., Mendes, V. F., Ventura, A. A., Bollela, V. R., & Teixeira, L. D. A. S. (2017). Implantation of Distance Learning as Strategy in Medical Internship: Challenges and Perspectives. Revista Brasileira de Educação Médica, 41(2), 269-277.

· Oloruntoba, R. (2009). Customer service in emergency relief chains. International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, 39(6), 486-505

· Payne, M. (2014). Modern social work theory (2nd ed.). Basingstoke: London Macmillan Press.

· Turner, F. J. (2017). Social work treatment: Interlocking theoretical approaches. Oxford University Press.

· UNHCR. (2008). A Community-based approach in UNHCR operations. Retrieved from https://www.refworld.org/pdfid/47da54722

NOTE: Please follow the example Assignment. The example assignment is done by another student. If you follow the example assignment, you will find all the personal experiences we had at Food Bank NT. Please do not just paraphrase the whole example assignment and make it look like a new one for me. Do your own research so to avoid plagiarism. The above references or the references in the example assignment are not correctly done in CDU’s APA 6th edition. The Referencing must be done in CDU’s APA 6th edition.

Assessment

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HCS365_ESSAY_Sushma Budhathoki Basnet S281955

Work Integrated Learning in Higher Education

By STUDENT’s Name

STUDENT ID

Integrated Methods of Humanitarian and Community Studies

HCS 365

Course co-ordinator’s NAME

Bachelor of Humanitarian and Community studies

Students are not enough with theoretical knowledge only to bring in workplace smoothly. There is importance of professional environment for students in higher education which provides them required experience and make them capable to perform in working environment using their capacity. Work Integrated Learning (WIL) is an interaction and combination of academic and student’s performance in the field of work for making capable of undergraduate students in their interested area to work (Jackson, 2015). Higher Institutions undertake WIL as a task to make environment for students to achieve practical knowledge in their chosen field via placement practice and other work-related learning (Gates 2014). It has many advantages for students as well as organisation and institutions. The goal of Work Integrated Learning is to observe that the students have integrated both professional as well as theoretical activities at placement practice along with positive success in work related activity. This paper is designed to explain about the benefits and disadvantages of Work Integrated Learning in emergency food relief program via professional placement practice. Moreover, this essay will also discuss about the skills and challenges of students which they face while undertaking professional work and the way how it helps professional improvement in the field of community.

Students have perfect developing skills opportunity due to work integrated learning which is to assimilate practical and theoretical knowledge. Jackson (2015) describes that students are fully with the knowledge required for change into the work environment by merging education into practice. The main purpose of education is to provide knowledge, but it is insufficient for students to elaborate their skill in the workplace (Choy, 2011). Placement practice at Foodbank NT provides chance to the students to see and feel the real world by contacting with different people which leads in achieving different skills such as problems solving skills, leadership skills, making real life decision along with identification of potential problems and therefore it helps in managing diversity and uncertainty at the workplace. Thus, students can learn practical knowledge through field program due to work integrated learning.

Work Integrated Learning provides a great opportunity for students to understand their knowledge gained from University and the way of using it into real placement (Harris, Jones, & Coutts, 2010). It helps to make students to improve their task skills and make students a proficient community professional. Students have responsibility of co-ordinating and managing different activities to provide effective service delivery while working in emergency food service program. They find out the different demand of practice and opportunity for addressing the challenges by diverse needs of different stakeholders. Students can interpret their theoretical knowledge of different community-based models and approaches into practice. They can translate planning, evaluation and monitoring, participatory analysis and others which they learnt in their classroom into real practice. Oloruntoba (2009) describes that if the students are exposed to the real-life work task according to their course while studying then professionalism and different employment skills will be developed in their career. Furthermore, the students get chance to find out their expectation in the field of learning which supports in their study process too.

Work Integrated Learning provides the undergraduate students opportunity to learn more about the real world which cannot be taught in the classroom that they would practice in their job. Students are exposed to different qualified people in their placement practice. They can share their experience, knowledge which they got in the classroom so that they can get clarification in those areas that is very necessary in their course but in their lesson plan (Clark, Cantori, Bilgin and Mukuria, 2016). Jackson and Collings (2018) describes that students can learn both technical and non-technical skills due to work integrated learning which will help them in employment in their future. Placement practice at Foodbank also provides students both technical and non- technical skills. For instance: student must use open computer and do check in and check out of each client while working on Food for life program of Foodbank NT. Not only that, students will be taught how to manage the waste of Foodbank NT that is very important for humanitarian field which is not taught in school. In addition, students will find out their abilities which is essential in their field due to WIL which encourages every student to get their aims. WIL inspires students to make habitual with the environment and culture so that they can analyse themselves to their future pathway better. As a community worker, professional may need to face different problems so WIL provides a guidance about how to face those problems and how the future be like.

The focus of WIL at emergency relief organisation is towards career by collaborating with different learning organisations to the field (Payne, 2014). Students are provided with different skills and knowledge which makes a bond between education and complex mandate of professional practice. Students play very important role in running the transition period from school level to employment level. They have different issues, challenges and frustrations too during their switch time. But the placement program of the course helps students to know about the skills which they should have (Binder, Baguley, Crook & Miller, 2015). WIL become popular in a very short period which is a compulsory component in most of the college and universities in Australia which is an organized and unpaid. Students can develop their resume due to WIL which is an essential requirement of an employer. It makes a huge difference between employees who have gone Work Integrated Learning and others who don’t have.

Work Integrated learning makes ability to students to understand the expected standards which adjusts the level of professional for enhancing their job opportunities. Professional placement practice improves job opportunity because employers emphasises on hiring to those candidates who finished placement practice in the related field (Payne, 2014) which will help in reducing work load and price of training for the employees in the organisation. An organisation can focus and serve important needs of the community if they have available resources for service delivery. The experience which employee get from WIL helps in reducing the stress while working in an organisation that leads in coping with the demands of the organisation and decreases the tension on the administration (Jackson, 2015). There will be long term benefits of WIL in an organisation as well as students because they need more resources and training when hiring new employee without WIL which might be short term too.

Students develop new skills and knowledge by facing many situations during work integrated learning in emergency food relief organisations such as Foodbank NT. One of the skills is critical thinking which makes students in making right decision to provide an important need during scarcity problem. Other skills are leadership skills, problem solving skills, decision making skills communication skills, administrative skills and money handling skills. For instance: while doing placement practice at Foodbank NT, participants must handle the given projects themselves on behalf of co-ordinator. They should make decision while working with little resources. Students encounters with different difficult situation which helps them in deciding during placement practice at Foodbank NT. For example: when I was making a pallet for food for life program during placement practice, it was very hard for me to find the products in appropriate place where I had to think and need to plan as co-ordinator was on meeting at that time. UNHCR (2008) describes that decision-making process becomes complicated when alternatives should be chosen. So, participants should decide which meet the nutritional needs of clients which acts as a safety net to people while doing work integrated learning at Foodbank NT. Not only that, students can develop skills for addressing challenges when they work with the mentors and experienced staff to encounter a scarcity too.

Emergency food relief service is related to the helpless people of the community such as old age people, disable people and children. It further connects with different conditions such as low income, pensioner and other social economic problems. Students are informed with such type of condition during placement practice at Foodbank NT. Vulnerable are in needs of social and economic hardships. Practitioner should find out both external and internal factors of those people who needs food security. Students get opportunity to work with different vulnerable people of the community and find out their important needs while doing placement practice. They also got chance to understand the connection between alcohol, mental health and economic condition of helpless people which creates relation between theoretical and practical contexts (Brenner, 2010). Students are facilitated with all skills important for addressing the challenges and providing appropriate service to the community by introducing unexpected changes and surprises.

Work Integrated Learning helps learners in improving different ability skills for instance: cultural competence, communication skills and team work. While doing placement practice at Foodbank NT, effective communication skills is an essential factor for students as they engage with people from different background and culture (Jackson, & Wilton, 2016). They might get opportunity to attend different meeting and conference where they can use communication skills and they will know how meeting and conference are conducted. Likewise, placement practice helps in enhancing student’s cultural competence skills as they might have to deal with people from different cultural background. Teamwork is an important aspect for community worker which is learned by placement practice. While working at Foodbank NT as a community development worker, practitioner must work in a team which helps in problem solving of any issue. They work with some volunteers who might not have some understanding of knowledge to work so team work is an essence factor on that type of situation. There is difference race, gender, professional level, age and time management in each employee. Their thinking might also be different which creates conflict. So, team work plays important role in dealing with such type of people and situation.

Students face several challenges while doing placement practice in a new environment. Sometimes lack of proper orientation creates problem to the students. Without proper induction, students won’t have ay idea about the agency and their role which makes them familiarise with the task. Some organisation does not provide a formal orientation program to the students which makes difficult for students to know about their duties. Sometimes higher educational institute doesn’t essential support to the students. So, such type of institutions should provide support to the students to make them capable and engage in the work integrated learning. Furthermore, they should work together with the agencies to make sure that students are doing best to fit in their future path and organisations follow all conditions and guidance of work integrated learning. On the other hand, economic problem is another challenge of placement practice which is faced by students during work integrated learning. Placement practice is an unpaid to the learner, so they face different type of financial problem during work integrated learning. Lau et al. (2017) describes that students encounter with problems in their first week of placement because they attempt to adjust in the new environment. So, there should be proper policy made to the students for considering financial arrangements and help to the students by government in partnership with higher educational institute and organisation who provides placement practice and work integrated learning. Besides, female students face some harassment by their supervisors during work integrated learning period. Sheehan (2016) describes that seniors and male staff impose harassment to the female learners. Some employees and supervisor sometimes detest students because of having low knowledge which might make students demotivated and leave their placement practice before their finishing date too. To eradicate this problem, there should be establishment of some administrative support system to help students in raising their voice against their problem with the right department. Bates (2005) mentions that administration of work integrated learning should be supported by the organisation via making policies and procedures. Students should be inspired to improve their output by providing motivations. Not only that, students are participated in other activities which is unprofessional and not related with the career during work integrated learning. Sometimes organisation misuses the students by providing other duties as they don’t have experience which makes students deprived of knowledge and experience in their related field. So, there should be collaboration between the University and organisation to address such type of challenges of students during work integrated learning period.

Different social work theories can be used while working as a community development worker in an emergency food relief organisation. Community workers can use behavioural theory to know working environment. Moreover, they can observe and analyse the community along with clients and organisations by applying behavioural theory. As Australia is a multicultural country, community worker should have to deal with people from different country. Engstrom and Jones (2007) stated that social worker should have the knowledge of culture, traditions and customs of the place where they are going to work first time. While doing placement practice at Foodbank NT, there might be more expectation than code of conduct so practitioner can use behavioural theory at that time. Similarly, social learning theory is a process of learning new skills and knowledge by observing other’s work. Students have opportunity to observe supervisor’s work and provide different chance to become effective community worker. Supervisor will supervise every student while doing placement practice in any organisation. Students can observe and learn about service delivery method and computer software of Foodbank NT and evaluating supervisor’s way to handle the complex issue during service delivery. Students can have idea for using their theoretical knowledge into practice when they use these two theories during placement practice to become community development worker.

Practitioner can use task centred approach and strengths-based approach while working at Foodbank NT. Task centred approach is more emphasized, systematic structured and problem-solving approach. Clients problem can be solved by the practitioner with the support, guidance and resources for solving the problem (Turner, 2017). Students might not have capacity to give advice and suggestion to the clients in the beginning while doing placement practice at Foodbank NT but eventually their ability will be developed to provide guidance to the clients by the help of practitioner. Clients priorities will be focused more in task centred approach where clients express their problems which they want to be solved. For example: while doing food for life program of foodbank NT, community worker tries to solve the personal problem of clients by asking their problem. Similarly, Foodbank NT uses strength-based approach in which clients are the centred point who will receive service from service provider based on their needs. Clients can select any products whatever they like, and no one can force to grab the products in food for life program of Foodbank NT. However only one approach is not enough to solve the problem in some case. At that time, practitioner can involve two or more approach for better outcomes. Students cannot get chance to learn everything in the class as there is huge difference in changing theoretical into practical practice.

Placement practice provide opportunity to the students to grab different administrative as well as practical knowledge to the related field that is important in their future career. Students will be able to work in any community service organisation and emergency relief organisation particularly in food relief organisation because of several skills acquired at Foodbank NT such as leadership skills, communication, cultural competence, administrative, problem solving, customer service and money handling. Students get opportunity to develop network, rapport and making career path via work integrated learning at Foodbank NT. As different organisation work in collaboration with Foodbank NT, students get chance to talk with different stakeholders and establishing networks with them who are very important to the helpless member of the community. This placement practice helps in career development of students. Students have knowledge essential for material or financial support based on needs of vulnerable people and the service of the organisation they work with. The students and organisation provide effort together to progress the emergency food relief services and suggestion of better policies and approaches to improve the service delivery of the organisation.

In a nutshell, work integrated learning has a lot of benefits to the students as well as educational institute as it helps students to represent in real working environment. There is opportunity for students to gain professional experience and skills important for better performance in their related field via work integrated learning which helps an organisation to hire an experienced candidate to hold their activities in a professional way that will save their money to provide related training to unexperienced workers. Work integrated learning work with different organisation and educational institute to develop and make realistic educational program to address the needs of the community and the agency. Students faces different challenges during work integrated learning which could be solved by effective supervision from educational institution as well as agency.

References

Bates, L. (2005). Building a bridge between university and employment: Work-integrated learning. Brisbane, Australia: Queensland Parliamentary Library. Retrieved from https://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/documents/explore/researchpublications/researchbriefs/2005/200508

Binder, J. F., Baguley, T., Crook, C., & Miller, F. (2015). The academic value of internships: Benefits across disciplines and student backgrounds. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 41, 73-82.

Choy, S. (2011). Partnerships between universities and workplaces: some challenges for work-integrated learning. Studies in Continuing Education, 33(2).

Clark, L., Rowe, A., Cantori, A., Bilgin, A., & Mukuria, V. (2016). The power dynamics and politics of survey design: measuring workload associated with teaching, administering and supporting work-integrated learning courses. Studies in Higher Education, 41(6), 1055-1073.

Engstrom, D., & Jones, L. P. (2007). A broadened horizon: The value of international social work internships. Social Work Education, 26 (2), 136-150.

Jackson, D., & Collings, D. (2018). The influence of Work-Integrated Learning and paid work during studies on graduate employment and underemployment. Higher Education, 76(3), 403-425.

Jackson, D., & Collings, D. (2018). The influence of Work-Integrated Learning and paid work during studies on graduate employment and underemployment. Higher Education, 76(3), 403-425.

Jackson, D., & Wilton, N. (2016). Developing career management competencies among undergraduates and the role of work-integrated learning. Teaching in Higher Education, 21(3), 266-286.

Lau, F. A., Mendes, V. F., Ventura, A. A., Bollela, V. R., & Teixeira, L. D. A. S. (2017). Implantation of Distance Learning as Strategy in Medical Internship: Challenges and Perspectives. Revista Brasileira de Educação Médica, 41(2), 269-277.

Oloruntoba, R. (2009). Customer service in emergency relief chains. International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, 39(6), 486-505

Payne, M. (2014). Modern social work theory (2nd ed.). Basingstoke: London Macmillan Press.

Turner, F. J. (2017). Social work treatment: Interlocking theoretical approaches. Oxford University Press.

UNHCR. (2008). A Community-based approach in UNHCR operations. Retrieved from https://www.refworld.org/pdfid/47da54722

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