1,720,975 research outputs found
First year student resilience as a factor in retention and engagement
No full textThere is a limited literature related to the links between resilience and transition for first year students. In Criminology and Criminal Justice, students enter careers identified as high stress employment sectors, e.g. child safety, policing, and corrections and it is important to incorporate into our teaching, strategies that will build resilience for success in these challenging employment sectors. In order to do this we need to understand the resilience factors that our students bring or do not bring to the beginning of their studies. In semester one of 2010, the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice investigated the resilience attributes that first year students had brought to their studies. This project involved both pre- and post- surveys as well as focus groups and individual student interviews. The data presented here will provide a summary of our findings and highlight the strategies identified as being useful in resilience building
Weaving the threads of knowledge: A focus on students
No full textThis research paper will address the process of learning in a cooperative education program from the students' perspective. Each author will consider the student's point of view from a different position. The paper builds a combined picture of the student's understanding of the placement using a constructivist interpretive methodology that concentrates on verbatim accounts of students' responses as the placement proceeds. Annerley, who has recently graduated as a social worker, will comment on the interpretations she placed on the practicum experience she had herself during her degree program. She will go on to outline her subsequent honours research into the perspectives of other students completing field placements. The importance of the student's contribution to the student/supervisor relationship will be emphasised by Lyndel, a senior researcher for the Queensland Parliament, who has recently supervised students herself in a demanding workplace. She will give her perspective on the student's need for supervision and direction. Merrelyn, as the convenor of the work placement program conducted by Griffith University's School of Criminology and Criminal Justice for degree level students, will discuss her current research into what the university is able to do about how the students learn and what they learn through the placement experience. The paper will conclude with some important suggestions about innovations that the authors believe should be introduced into the culture of cooperative education in the future if it is to achieve its stated goals.No Full Tex
Preparing Professionals for Autonomy: Workplace-based Courses in Professional Education
No full textArts, Education & Law Group, School of Criminology and Criminal JusticeNo Full Tex
Work-integrated learning workloads: The realities and responsibilities
No full textThe delivery of work-integrated learning (WIL) courses involves university academic and professional staff in specific duties, many of which are outside of the scope of the traditional categories used by universities to determine equitable workloads for academic and administrative personnel. This paper draws on an investigation in a metropolitan university in Australia and records how it is beginning to arrive at appropriate ways to do this. A survey tool was utilised to identify the specific workload demands on staff who worked with WIL courses. The data provided information that confirmed the complexity of the work and also showed that there was a gap between the reality of the workload and the allocation provided. A number of recommendations have been made as a way forward. Further research is recommended that could include the perspectives of students and organisational supervisors reporting on the level of academic staff member support and supervision.Arts, Education & Law Group, School of Criminology and Criminal JusticeFull Tex
Preparing students for the professional workplace: Who has responsibility for what?
Full text linkThis paper considers the concepts of curriculum which underlie existing workplace based learning programs and advocates that clearly articulated and meaningful statements about the nature of the learning that occurs in such programs are couched in an appropriate discourse. It argues that universities must take the lead in meeting demands that educational institutions be more accountable for the learning of their students by developing curriculum statements that are consistent with an emancipatory model of curriculum. Such statements should specify the frameworks in which content and even assessment can be negotiated with individual students rather than being specified in advance and should demand that students take responsibility for their own learning
Just Practice? Towards a Theory of Professional Education That Uses the Workplace as Context
No full textUniversities are becoming more accountable for their own funding and for establishing their own societal relevance. As Governments respond to the demands of industry and commerce to fit graduates for the workplace, universities are being asked to provide students with the knowledge and skills for learning and working in an ever-changing workplace. There is a strong implication here that the traditional theory-based learning associated with higher education needs to be augmented (and complemented) by an experiential component that enables students to develop a 'feel' for the workplace and 'an instinct' for what they are likely to be doing when they are working. Demands for such a change are not only coming from industry: students are asking that their university programs be made more 'relevant' to the reality of work rather than merely for the next step in the higher education ladder which requires the 'skills of research'. Recently there has been a strong move throughout the western world towards 'cooperative education' or 'work-integrated education'. Local initiatives at individual institutions are beginning to emphasise the importance of universities developing more symbiotic relationships with the industries in which their graduates are likely to be employed. In Australia, Griffith University has, for example, set up through its Griffith Institute of Higher Education (GIHE) The Griffith Graduate Project, which is attempting to develop an institution-wide policy in this area so that a concerted and coordinated response can be made. As convenor of a Griffith University workplace-based experiential course in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, I find this study has provided an opportunity to examine the key determinants of success for a workplace-based course and to consider in detail the teaching and learning processes involved. The aim was to examine the fine-grained processes underlying the construction of new knowledge as students accommodate to the demands placed upon them. The methodology adopted was based on an interpretive constructivist paradigm and addressed a number of questions that considered the roles of the different stakeholders in a specific workplace-based course, the formal and informal expectations held of them, and the role-conflicts these stakeholders tended to experience. This meant that the basic process followed was inductive rather than deductive, worked from the specific to the general and required a methodology that did the same. Because the nature of the work in criminal justice agencies often must deal with feelings and emotion, it was assumed that the students' emotional responses could affect their learning so the methodology allowed for the subjective interpretations and responses (both appropriate and inappropriate) made by all stakeholders and the data was collected as verbatim reports of both factual reports and feeling responses. These were then analysed according to the students' own reports of learning and key principles of procedure for the design and implementation of such courses across the career spectrum were extracted. The values and approaches of action research were central to the responsive case study methodology that was developed. The study found that at its best, the course was conducted according to principles that enabled the student to experience an intuitive 'felt reality' while still making decisions on a strong cognitive base. The acquisition of knowledge appeared to depend on transactions that occurred between teacher and learner, supervisor and student in the workplace milieu. The thesis concludes with a number of recommendations and implications for developing best practice in the field. Ways in which the findings may be incorporated into university policy are also considered, as are the implications for change in the design, conduct and teaching of university professional studies courses.Thesis (PhD Doctorate)Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)School of Vocational, Technology and Arts EducationFull Tex
Work-integrated curricula in university programs
No full textArts, Education & Law Group, School of Criminology and Criminal JusticeFull Tex
Don't walk the plank, build a bridge! : Helping students span the divide between university and the workplace
No full textThe School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia offers a course that provides students with an opportunity to be involved in an experience of professional work. This course, Field Placement, has been designed to provide a structured framework within which students are encouraged, and expected, to develop independence and professional attributes. It provides opportunities for the students to articulate their learning and present a developed personal framework of integrated academic knowledge and practice knowledge. This paper attempts to address the questions raised in Professor H涥ls background paper and takes the position that knowledge development is limited without action but for active knowledge development to occur it is essential to understand and foster the social learning relationships. Particular attention is focussed on developing a greater understanding of how to best create opportunities and relationships that will assist students to walk confidently across the bridge as a professional contributing productively within the community.Arts, Education & Law Group, School of Criminology and Criminal JusticeFull Tex
The responsive case study: action research and action learning in short courses
No full textArts, Education & Law Group, School of Criminology and Criminal JusticeFull Tex
The assessment of work integrated learning: Symptoms of personal change
No full textArts, Education & Law Group, School of Criminology and Criminal JusticeFull Tex
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