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INLS 299 ( Field Experience Policies and Procedures ) |
Three seminar options are offered this fall. Two are sets of three face to face meetings in Manning Hall Room 304. These are tentatively scheduled as follows:Seminar 3 is an online seminar. Check blackboard.unc.edu.
- Seminar 1: 12:30 to 1:45 on Mondays -- September 15, October 13, November 17
- Seminar 2: 12:30 to 1:45 on Thursdays -- September 18, October 16, November 20
These meetings will follow the seminar agenda described below.
The third seminar option (the only one for those at a distance and perhaps the preferable one for anyone who have already completed most of their time on site) is an online discussion. The forum is provided as part of a Blackboard course management system. It will be accessible by Onyen and password.
Below are some guidelines for the seminars.
The first topic for discussion is Description and Issues. For the first meeting please come prepared to describe your sites and the services it offers (or post the description for those in the online version). Describe your learning objectives and the responsibilities you have assumed for your fieldwork experience. Provide a profile of the site -- who are the staff, who are the clientele, what resources are available, what services are offered by the agency and how the services are delivered. Describe one or two aspects of the site that you think are particularly interesting. Identify any issues (real or potential) that you observe having to do with personnel, resources, technology, services, impending change, new policies, or the like. For the online discussion, your first entry will be relatively long (the equivalent of speaking for 5 or 6 minutes) so it will be good to break it up into short paragraphs and even to use organizing phrases. For the FTF seminars try to think of something that you could bring as a "show and tell." Listen (or read) the remarks that others have made and respond to them looking for similarities or striking differences and in particular trying to identify issues that may form the basis for a theory/reality comparison in the second seminar. For the online group, please make a minimum of three entries by October 13.
The second discussion topic is entitled Theory and Reality. Here you are asked to relate one of the issues you have identified to the literature of the field. Typically this is in relation to the paper you are to prepare for your faculty supervisor. Please find and come to the FTF seminar ready to describe/discuss 4-5 relevant readings -- you may want to focus on one reading and use the others as supporting documents. For the online seminar, post a few (4-5) relevant citations (be sure to include author, title, journal, volume, dates, and pages or place, publisher and date if it is a book or chapter) and provide a short summary of what the readings were about. Choose readings that are substantive and research-based. After a brief summary of what each reading is about, contrast the author's ideas with what you observed on site. For online folks, you may want to make several brief entries with one or two readings each or one longer one incorporating all your readings. As above, please comments on the entries of one or two of your colleagues in the seminar. All entries for this forum should be completed by November 17 .
The third and last discussion topic is Management Issues and Conclusions. Here you are asked to assume that you have become the manager or director of the service/department/organization where you are doing your field work (that is, assumed the position of your site supervisor). Describe what things you would do the same way and what you would do differently. Tell us why. Describe your suggestions for improving the work flow or the services at your site. Read and comment on what your colleagues have said. End with a statement about what you learned about yourself and your career goals as a result of the field experience. This will be within the discussion period for the FTF people; for the online group, postings of three to four entries All entries for this forum should be completed by December 8.. I look forward to hearing about your rich and wonderful experiences.
Page revised 9/4/2003.
Evelyn Daniel. Fieldwork Coordinator