Practical learning: Advocating for social change with practicum partners

Through a breadth of practical learning and integration opportunities in the course, students get hands-on experience that aims to help them:

• Develop the vocabulary to assess and describe their existing skills, and skills they will be developing through the course
• Facilitate genuine connections with community partners in service of reciprocal learning and contribution
• Integrate theory with practice through hands-on experiential learning
• Gain an understanding of how to develop respectful and mutually beneficial relationship with community partners, including necessary communication skills
• Increase confidence in applying to jobs after graduation in alignment with values and experience

Delivery

Practicum, seminars, workshops, showcase

Method

Practicum

Students are matched based on interest with various community organizations, based on mutual benefit. Students complete at least 30 hours of work with the organization.

Seminars

Dr. Sia assigns theoretical readings throughout the term and discussed during class time, helping students make connections to practicum work.

Workshops

In past courses, Dr. Sia has invited the Arts Career Strategist into the classroom to bookend the practicum experience. The first workshop focused on existing skills, general expectations in a practicum placement, and goal setting.

Upon conclusion of practicum, students were invited to reflect on their experience, identify skills, and consider how they might like to speak about them, and their experiences, for other audiences, such as potential employers or on grad school applications.

Showcase

Students are invited to share their experience, identify key takeaways, and celebrate their achievements with their classmates at the end of the term.

Why do you incorporate Practical Learning?

I think many GRSJ students come to our program committed to transformative justice and the deep level work needed for social change. I think many are also grappling with a tension between their strong social justice values and the realities of the world we live in. The practicum class opens up a space for them to discuss questions like:

• How do we navigate these contradictions?
• How do we make sure that when we are working in community, we are working in reciprocal ways that honour our value system?
• How can we work in ways that are non-hierarchical, based on mutual care and respect, and with the knowledge that we are trying to do work for social change on stolen land?

The practicum placement allows students to go beyond the sometimes surface-level connections of “networking” to build deeper relationships over a school term with community partners, and to practice being accountable to the organization and the community it serves.

Students might initially feel that their contributions within the practicum setting are small, but by the end, many come to see that apparently small acts can be indispensable to the larger work of their practicum organization.

What have you heard from students about their experience?

There is, of course, some variance depending on how much they enjoyed their practicum placement. But many come out of the experience inspired. Some have developed a new interest they want to explore further. For example, I had one student discover a love for conceptual art! I had another decide to pursue law school with the intention of using this knowledge to advocate for migrant communities.

Some students are inspired by the way they saw community partners run their organizations through ethics of mutual respect and valuing of all perspectives. I’ve had a few students go on to organize social justice or arts-based collectives in their own communities. These are just a few examples of the extraordinary things our students at the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Social Justice go on to do in their communities.

I’ve heard from many students that they are looking for this type of experiential learning at UBC, especially as they approach graduation and the reality of looking for a job. They told me that meeting someone personally from the Careers team helped them feel that they aren’t alone in the process.

Do you have any suggestions for other instructors who are considering practical learning for their course?

I really appreciated how open the Practical Learning team was to having a conversation and working collaboratively when it came to the in-class workshops. The language we use may be different, but there are ways that we can work together to provide students with various resources and support.

I felt the collaboration was especially helpful in having students take stock of their own strengths, skillsets, and value systems to identify what they could offer to the community partners in their practicum placement and explore how this experience could point them in new directions for future growth. It takes some work and advance planning, but it really benefited the students.