How should I monitor what students are doing in their externship placements?
You will find that the combination of reading students’ journals and holding regular supervision meetings with them (see Qs 2 & 3 above) will keep you well apprised of the issues students are facing at their field placements. Although many of us have found that our first instinct on learning that a student has encountered a problem at the workplace is to pick up the phone and call the student’s field supervisor in order to find out what is really going on and attempt to negotiate a solution, the pedagogy of WCL’s externship program counsels against this approach. Instead, our philosophy is to guide students in figuring out their own solutions to the workplace problems they will soon face on their own. You will find that the combination of reading students’ journals and holding regular supervision meetings with them (see Qs 2 & 3 above) will keep you well apprised of the issues students are facing at their field placements. Although many of us have found that our first instinct on learn
