Field
experience
YDL Field Experience (CI 5962)
Basics
The purpose of the field
experience is to provide you with opportunities for
professional mastery and for personal development. As you document your
experiences and learning, you contribute to an understanding of the
substance of youth development leadership as well as actually changing
how the community responds to its youth and manifests its moral compact
with them.
Every student must have a faculty-approved field experience lasting
at least 180 hours. Since the field experience is an opportunity for you
to integrate and develop further leadership in youth development work—and given the program's philosophies of adult experiential education and
healthy youth development—each student will design his/her own field
experience in consultation with a faculty adviser.
We encourage you to think of your field experience in terms of lived
or learned time instead of clock time and credit hours. Ask yourself,
"What is required to bring about the learning I want to
master?" Design your field experience to accomplish your desired
outcomes. If your plan requires vastly more time and learning than you
believe is warranted by the field experience, work with your adviser to
develop some independent study options to encompass your goals.
Proposal process
It is your job to make the contacts and, with consultation, to
negotiate a field experience contract with a public or private
community agency, program, group, or practitioner working directly
with and/or on behalf of youth. You must have a supervisor/mentor of
record employed by that organization or group. You may also select a
reflective mentor to serve as a guide and sounding board.
Once you have decided what you want to do, you must write a
proposal and present it to a panel of faculty members. After
necessary adjustments are made and your proposal is approved, a copy
must be signed by you, your adviser, and the person serving as your
field experience supervisor. This process makes your proposal an
official contract, which allows you to receive University of
Minnesota credit, insurance, etc. Copies of the signed, approved
proposal must be filed with your adviser, your supervisor, and the
YDL graduate assistant.
Proposal checklist
- Decide what you want to do. (It’s OK to have more than one idea.)
Be able to justify why your choice is an appropriate field
experience for you.
- Make contacts within the community to find a professional to
supervise you during your field experience. You may also select a
reflective mentor to serve as a guide and sounding board, but you
are not required to do so.
- Complete the Field Experience Proposal form
[.doc] and submit it to your
adviser. Be sure your selected supervisor agrees with and is
committed to your plan!
- Have your adviser review and endorse your field experience proposal.
Your adviser’s signature on the proposal is his or her
recommendation of your proposal to the faculty.
- Schedule a time to meet with three or more faculty members for a
consultation. Your adviser can give a good idea as to the days and
times that people are most likely to be available. (Recently, this
has not been feasible due to faculty schedules and commitments.
If your attempts to schedule a faculty consultation have not
been successful, schedule one-on-one consultations with at least
one faculty member—preferably two—other than your adviser.)
- Give each of these faculty members a copy of your proposal at least
two weeks prior to your scheduled consultation.
- Attend the faculty consultation/one-on-one meetings. Expect to
explain your proposal and why you think it is appropriate as a field
experience. Faculty members will ask you questions, suggest changes
to your proposal, and challenge you to think critically about your
plans and purpose.
- Revise your field experience proposal to reflect any changes
recommended by faculty. This final copy of your proposal must be
signed by you, your adviser, and your field experience supervisor.
- Make copies of your signed proposal. Submit one copy to each
of the following: your adviser, your supervisor, and the YDL
graduate assistant. This form is filed as an official
memorandum of understanding among you, the University of
Minnesota, and your supervisor and/or placement site.
- Upon conclusion of your field experience, you must write a
reflective analysis to be incorporated in your portfolio
presentation.
What other students have done
revised August 2007
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