SW\201 Policy Practice and Advocacy I
Fall 2006
Assignment #1
Thinking Like a Policy Advocate/Program
Analyst: Negotiating/Assessing a Field Contract
Due:
As required for your field placement, you must prepare a negotiated field placement learning contract. A field placement contract, according to conventional standards, ideally includes:
1. A series of explicit personal learning goals that you plan to achieve at your
field placement during the academic year;
2. One or more measurable objectives for each goal that you established for yourself.
These objectives should represent anticipated outcomes associated with your
learning goals; and
3. Identification of the specific action steps you will take to increase the likelihood
that your goals and objectives (outcomes) specified in your contract will be
realized. Included here should be incremental markers by which your progress
will be assessed.
Review your negotiated contract and assess it in terms of whether it will enable you to get the kind of experience that you feel you need in order to become a reflective practitioner who has advocacy at the core of their professional identity. Does the contract conform to the conventional ideal? Are the goal and objectives good ones? Are there issues regarding whether they may not help you learn what you think you need to learn? Are the measures leaving out or mischaracterize things you should be learning? Is measurement a good way to go to track your learning? Your assessment need only be 2-3 pages long (typewritten double-spaced) and is due September 26, 2006.