- What key issues did you examine through your placement activities this week?
This week, due to a turn of events with my health, I have had to return home to Australia. However, I have been allowed to complete my internship via correspondence. Therefore, it would be reasonable of me to say that my key issue this week was completing 40 hours of internship work through correspondence with a time difference. The time difference is only 4 hours, however communicating within that 4 hour difference means that when my mentor starts work at 10am local Jakarta time, it is 2pm my local time in Australia and when she finishes work at 5pm Jakarta time, it is 9pm my local time. I have had to remain consistent in asking for work for the earlier part of my tomorrow’s so as to not fall behind, and remain flexible with communication past 5pm or 6pm. However, I have found that my learnings and participation/outputs have been more since working via correspondence and looking back, I have realised this is because I was being somewhat drowned out by the other student I am on placement with. I didn’t speak up much in my first two weeks as every time we were posed a question, the other student would immediately respond and I failed to speak up as a result of causing tension with her.
- How does this reflector relate to one (or more) of your required readings?
I believe I now possess some of the qualities mentioned in Gardner’s (2008) article such as “identifying new problems/alternative solutions” and “interacting with people who hold different interests, values, or perspectives” (Gardner et al, 2008). I do wish I had noticed this trait during my interactions with her as I could have overcome that fear of disagreeing with her in person. But due to my ability to work rurally, I have been able to “create identity and meaning” (Boud and Middleton, 2003) outside of my learnings with her.
- How do the issues you have examined during your placement this week compare with those in your home country?
In my home country, I believe I would have been offered the opportunity to debrief with a mentor privately to express any such concerns and then devised a way to tackle that problem with a constructive solution as “workplace supervisors are a part of the networks of learning” (Boud and Middleton, 2003), therefore my workplace supervisor would have been a part of the solution as well. This would effectively maximise my contributions, as well as constructively teaching the other student to rein it in with their own personal feedback and the supervisor would also learn how to facilitate that.
- Did you face any professional challenges in your placement this week? How did you overcome them?
Professionally, I have been revising and researching the Green Skills II Project of Plan International and contrasting that project with other projects I have worked on in order to create feedback and constructive criticism for the project but I have been challenged by my lack of experience in such a field of feedback and constructive criticism so this was a huge learning experience for me. However, I have challenged myself to think positively about my input and feel confident that I have achieved this.
- What was your key learning outcome from this week’s placement activities?
My key-learning outcome from this week’s placement is that “staff can have difficulties in trusting supervisors to facilitate their learning because of supervisors’ formal role in surveillance of staff and the need for individuals to portray themselves as competent workers” (Boud and Middleton, 2003) and therefore, their facilitation of presenting challenges and solutions are quite varied from those I am accustomed to in Australia. Therefore, I will speak up when I find I have a challenge that I need help addressing.
Bibliography:
Boud, D and Middleton, H 2003, “Learning from others at work: communities of practice and informal learning”, Journal of Workplace Learning, Vol. 15, No. 5, Pp. 194-202
Gardner, P, Gross, L, Steglitz, I 2008, “Unpacking your study abroad experience: Critical reflection for workplace competencies”, Collegiate Employment Research Institute, Vol. 1, No. 1, Pp. 1-11
Alexandra Hall 