01-22-07
The Collaborative Fieldwork Model
Donna M. Costa
Collaboration is a term that is frequently heard in today's health care and educational settings. Applied to fieldwork, it refers to two or more students who are placed together in one clinical setting, usually with the same fieldwork educator. The students learn from each other in a reciprocal fashion, constructing knowledge through the exchange of ideas.
I have had experience for the last 10 years in facilitating collaborative fieldwork at a small hospital with a 20-bed inpatient psychiatric unit where I am employed as a part-time consultant (13 hours per week). The hospital has established contracts with eight colleges and universities that have occupational therapy programs, and I accept students year-round. Usually, they are in groups from several schools, which permits some very rich sharing of educational resources.
Fieldwork needs to be established in much the same way that we, as therapists, would go about planning an intervention for a particular client. We consider the theory that would provide the most optimum treatment based on the client's needs and wants. So too in fieldwork, we decide which learning theory and teaching model best suits our practice setting, but more important, the goals we have for the learning that will occur. Past educational methods in fieldwork have emphasized a one-on-one approach, in which one fieldwork educator is assigned to one student, and becomes his or her primary source of information. This pedagogical approach fosters dependence in the student, and limits the knowledge learned to what the supervisor knows. In contrast, collaborative learning is a more active approach that fosters autonomy in students, increases self-confidence, and promotes a commitment to lifelong learning.
Collaborative learning is based on the work of Lev Semenovich Vygotsky, a Soviet psychologist, whose social development theory of learning proposed that social interaction profoundly affects cognitive development.1 In her thorough review of collaborative fieldwork, Ellen Cohn stated: "Through the group interactive process, individuals learn about the diversity of their individual perspectives and create a unified broad perspective. If we embrace this perspective that knowledge is socially constructed through interaction with people, we can see the value of learning within groups during fieldwork" (p. 72).2 Cockrell, Caplow, and Donaldson described collaborative learning in the context of problem-based learning: "Acquiring new knowledge and restructuring existing knowledge emerge as individuals with differing viewpoints, experiences, and levels of knowledge about a particular topic engage in testing, reconciling, and ultimately forging a new, shared understanding of that topic through interaction with each other. A fundamental rationale for instructional strategies that promote the cooperation between learners is that such strategies more closely approximate the 'real world' than traditional didactic approaches" (p. 348).3
There are five elements for collaborative learning, as identified by Johnson and Johnson4:
- Positive interdependence—students succeed together, not individually, based on mutual learning goals.
- Face-to-face interaction: students help each other by building on each other's strengths.
- Individual accountability: students are responsible for their share of the work, and all must be equally active in the process.
- Cooperative skills: students must use the group process skills they have learned in the classroom.
- Group processing: students need to be continually giving each other feedback; after each group they lead or co-lead, they must make time to process with each other what happened.
Before beginning a collaborative fieldwork learning experience, the students and fieldwork educator must review the theory and practice of collaborative learning. I give out Cohn's article as a starting point. Students need to be prepared for the expectations and structure of the fieldwork, and I am careful to go over these in the pre-fieldwork interview. It is help-ful if all students who will be placed together are present during this interview. When students are expecting one kind of learning experience and they receive another, the results can be less than optimal. (The reader is referred to Peters and Armstrong,5 who provide a good description of matching learner expectations.)
A collaborative fieldwork experience is not achieved by simply putting several students together. There must be a very structured orientation to the facility during the first few days of the fieldwork experience. Students must be told how they can reach the supervisor when he or she is not present. There must be instruction on how to sit down together after each patient treatment group in order to process how the group went; I usually facilitate this on the first day by demonstrating to the students the kind of questions to be asked: What did the leader do particularly well? What might you have done differently? What does the leader need to work on to increase his or her skills? How did the clients respond? Were you an effective co-leader?
Students also perform other activities jointly, such as evaluations and occupational profiles. It can be very helpful to a student to have a partner, particularly when performing evaluations, in order to receive direct feedback. Students often have a great deal of anxiety in the beginning of fieldwork, and they tend to minimize or discount their performance. Their peer can provide them with objective feedback that will eventually lead to increased self-confidence.
The entire fieldwork experience must be highly structured in the absence of a full-time, on-site supervisor. I prepare a 12-week outline of all assignments, with clear due dates. Students' use of a daily reflective practice journal is essential for supervision. I tell them not to write about what they did, but rather how they felt about what they did. In addition, students are required to e-mail me a clinical question once a week.
All supervision is conducted with the entire group in this model. The only times I meet with students individually is at the midterm point and at the final. Although students sometimes complain that they wished I had been there more, the end product usually outweighs those complaints. Students emerge much more confident of their abilities, and much more likely to be self-starters. They appreciate the opportunity to be trusted to apply the knowledge they have previously learned. And they form strong partnerships with their peers, and a commitment to lifelong learning.
References
1. Doolittle, P. (1997). Vygotsky's zone of proximal development as a theoretical foundation for cooperative learning. Journal on Excellence in College Teaching, 8(1), 83–103.
2. Cohn, E., Dooley, N., & Simmons, L. (2001). Collaborative learning applied to fieldwork education. Occupational Therapy in Health Care, 15(1/2), 69–83.
3. Cockrell, K., Caplow, J., & Donaldson, J. (2000). A context for learning: Collaborative groups in the problem-based learning environment. Review of Higher Education, 23(3), 347–363.
4. Johnson, D. W., & Johnson, R. T. (1990). Learning together and alone: Cooperative, competitive and individualistic learning. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
5. Peters, J., & Armstrong, J. (1998). Collaborative learning: People laboring together to construct knowledge. New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, 79, 75–85.
Donna M. Costa, MS, OTR/L, is the interim program director at Stony Brook University in Stony Brook, New York, and the academic fieldwork coordinator representative on AOTA's Commission on Education.
Reference Information:
Costa, D. M. (2007). The collaborative fieldwork model. [Electronic Version]. OT Practice, 12(1), 25–26.
©Copyright 2007. The American Occupational Therapy Association. All rights reserved.