Supporting students during placements

Dr. Romany Martin, University of Tasmania, talked just now on "Supporting allied health students during rural placements" in the regular ACEN Research Conversations webinar. It struck me how much there was in common with computer students on placements at small organisations. 

One issue not discussed was the problem of scale. Dr Martin mentioned a supervisor who personally delivered groceries to a student isolated at home with COVID-19, but you can't do that if you have many hundreds of students. One way to overcome that is with software. If provided some advice for development of the Student Practice Evaluation Form- Revised Package, produced by University of Queensland. But that is for keeping track of, and assessing, occupational therapy students on placements. Is there anything more general?

TEQSA Guidance Note on Work-Integrated Learning

TEQSA have issued a Guidance Note on Work-Integrated Learning (v 1.1, 25 Aug 2017). This eight page document discusses how the Higher Education Standards Framework applies to students learning in the workplace, including clinical placements, online projects, internships, and workplace projects.

TEQSA  say that educational institutions are required have a "tenable rationale" for including Work Integrated Learning (WIL), and to monitor the student's experience and learning outcomes, "against defined, expected outcomes".

TEQSA provide an example of non-compliance where the educational institution does not assure the suitability of placements and safety of the students, doesn't provide feedback to the students and just has a single assessment item at the end of the placement unrelated to employability skills.

One approach I suggest could be used is on-line learning management systems and e-portfolios for  monitoring of student's progress and feedback for students and their host. I was on the project management committee for an on-line system developed at the University of Queensland to evaluate students on occupational therapy professional practice placements.

This was originally a paper based process, using the "Student Practice Evaluation Form "SPEF-R" (Turpin, Fitzgerald, and Rodger, 2011) used widely by universities around Australia.  It was converted to a mobile device compatible web based system using bespoke software. However, the same function could now be implemented using off-the-shelf- learning systems.

References

Turpin, M., Fitzgerald, C. and Rodger, S. (2011), Development of the Student Practice Evaluation Form Revised Edition Package. Australian Occupational Therapy Journal, 58: 67–73. doi: 10.1111/j.1440-1630.2010.00890.x Retrieved from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1440-1630.2010.00890.x/full