Work-integrated learning (WIL) practitioners, Patrick and Fallon (2014: 22) found, are expected to demonstrate leadership “in the absence of, or despite, a hierarchical structure”. The leadership role of WIL practitioners “develops from need and purpose rather than by appointment”; and incumbents “must lead by working collaboratively across their organisation, between organisations, and out into their communities”.
A successfully executed project drew upon the expertise of 47 well experienced WIL practitioners, distributed across six Australian universities. The project extended to WIL practitioners in industry and partner organisations. More than 100 WIL practitioners—from seven broad fields of education, namely Allied Health, Business and Tourism, Creative Industries, Teacher Education, Engineering, IT and Sciences—contributed (Patrick and Fallon, 2014: 12). Ten broad crucial areas of performance emerged from the validated data, namely: policy; resourcing; institutional culture; institutional structures and systems; external engagement; staff capabilities and development; pedagogy and curriculum; access and equity; research and scholarship; and partner organisational culture and systems (Patrick and Fallon, 2014: 12-13).
The project findings have already “proved to be a catalyst to harness a groundswell of interest at all the member universities” (Patrick and Fallon, 2014: 22). The WIL leadership framework is represented as three circles. The outer circle represents the context of distributed nature; within which WIL practitioners are required to function across the many settings; and required to blend distributed leadership. The second circle is divided into four quadrants, which together with the inner circle represents five domains; which “together and describe the key capabilities evidenced by WIL leaders across both university and employer settings” Patrick and Fallon, 2014: 19). The scope of the five domains of the WIL leadership Framework is illustrated in figure 3 below, copied from Patrick and Fallon (2014: 19); which is provided under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Patrick, C-J; & Fallon, W. (eds). 2014. Leading WIL: distributed leadership approach to enhance work integrated learning outcomes. Sydney: Australian Government Office for Learning and Teaching.
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