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Program Information

Why is SHU's Occupational Therapy Program Unique?
With the growing need for occupational therapists nationwide and increasing public interest in the profession, our program has made the commitment to remain small and intimate. This allows our faculty and students to get to know each other well, and to support ongoing learning for members of our occupational therapy community. The faculty of Sacred Heart University’s Occupational Therapy Program believes that learning naturally emerges from interactions between students, faculty, and clients. With this belief in mind, our program is structured to encourage and nurture these interactions.

The primary pedagogical method for our program is Problem Based Learning (PBL) where small groups of students and a faculty facilitator work through a case to foster clinical reasoning. Problem based learning provides educational content while simultaneously creating a forum for engaging in interactions and clinical decision-making typical of team-based health care. Group interactions also support the development of professional behaviors critical to practice.
 
Our department’s mission, vision, philosophy, and curriculum design reflects the values of the University as a whole as well as the educational philosophy of the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA). The acronym P.R.I.D.E., which has been adopted by our program, reveals our commitment to excellence in ourselves, our program, and our students. P.R.I.D.E. stands for
 
PRINCIPLED
  • Our values harmonize with those of the University and the profession of occupational therapy.
  • Day-to-day operations and long term planning is in accordance with our mission, vision, professional ethics, and core values.
  • Occupational justice is practiced by providing service to the local community.
  • We are committed to developing professional leaders who serve.
RESPONSIVE
  • We are readily available and personally attend to the needs of our students.
  • We are flexible, adaptable to changing needs and advances, and adjust to changes in health care practice.
  • We provide continuing education to the occupational therapy community, adjunct faculty, PBL facilitators, and fieldwork educators according to their needs.
INNOVATIVE
  • We utilize participatory pedagogies to encourage embodiment of professional skills.
  • We engage in collaborative and multidisciplinary teaching
  • We implement novel and instructive technologies in our teaching methods and examine their usefulness and effectiveness by gathering and incorporating student feedback.
  • We continually seek, examine, and utilize innovations in educational practice, clinical practice, research, and technology.
  • We use inventive methods through our P.R.I.D.E. portfolio and Therapeutic Use of Self course sequence to develop reflective practitioners and leaders who serve.
  • We expect our graduates to understand and implement data based decision making models based upon single subject research design to enhance their practice
DYNAMIC
  • We are collaborative and team-oriented in pedagogy and clinical practice.
  • We encourage exploration of multiple, diverse viewpoints to enlarge perspectives and solve problems.
  • We are dedicated to seeking diversity in faculty, staff, and student populations.
  • We are a powerful force for positive growth in our learning community.
EXCELLENT
  • We are proud that the NBCOT pass rate for our graduates is above the national average.
  • We are committed to curricular excellence, quality teaching, and engagement in scholarship to support faculty and student knowledge.
  • We engage in continual curricular improvements that promote life-long learning in students and faculty.
  • We are knowledgeable in our areas of expertise.
  • We remain current in educational practice, clinical advancements, research, and technology.
  • We are well respected among the professional community.
  • We encourage logical, critical, and informed questioning of existing theories, models, frames of reference, and domains of knowledge.
Our curriculum design is portrayed by the circular tree of life, with its roots consisting of the foundational knowledge students need to become exemplary practitioners; its trunk symbolizing the process that supports the knowledge scaffolding and critical thinking; and its top branches symbolizing the skills, abilities, and professional behavior outcomes of the entry level practitioners graduating from our program. The tree’s branches circle back to its roots, demonstrating the continual process of learning and the integration of new information with the foundational roots as an occupational therapist grows throughout a lifetime of practice.
 
See what Dr. R. Kent Crookston, author of Working with Problem Faculty:  A 6-Step Guide for Department Chairs (2012), published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. says about the Program's Vision and Mission‌‎‌‎
 
 
Curriculum Objectives
Consistent with our vision of PRIDE, our graduates will:
  • Participate in promotion of the profession, professional service, and professional activities at local, state, or national levels to enhance their professional identity.
  • Practice in a safe and legal manner in all interactions and adopt professional behaviors rooted in ethical standards, core values & attitudes.
  • Respond to unmet occupational and educational needs in underserved communities through leadership, advocacy, and service.
  • Identify strengths, passions, and individual talents to direct career choices, life-long professional development, and innovation in practice and scholarship.
  • Deepen the ability to self-reflect on ongoing daily experiences to drive their personal growth, professional development, practice, and scholarship.
  • Exhibit critical thinking and clinical reasoning skills requisite for entry-level occupational therapy practice and ongoing continued competency.
Curriculum Design and Approach to Learning
The curriculum utilizes a Problem Based Learning (PBL) approach. PBL incorporates small group tutorials led by expert faculty members or clinical practitioners, designed to bridge course content with practice by having students actively engage in the clinical reasoning process through case studies.

Students solve clinical problems through self-directed and peer group study, evidence-based research and discussion in order to integrate a theoretical and foundational knowledge base into the application of occupational therapy assessment and intervention strategies and skills. ‌Students actively engage in and develop the clinical reasoning skills requisite to team collaboration, leadership and evidenced-based practice.

PBL provides students with the foundation for self directed, life long learning necessary for a practicing professional. The curriculum incorporates fieldwork and community-based practice opportunities where students actively use clinical reasoning in the design of assessment, intervention and follow up strategies based on evidence, leadership, supervision and management, research and entrepreneurship. Students are provided with a strong educational background to address the physical, cognitive, emotional, social and spiritual needs of their clients in order to design occupation based interventions which enable clients to participate optimally in their own living environments of work, school, play, home, society and community.

Class Size and Structure

‌‌‎The maximum class size is 50. In lab the typical student to teacher ratio is 18 to 1 and all PBL tutorials are in a small group format, typically with 6-8 students per facilitator. The faculty for this program is highly involved with the students and gets to know them well as individuals and future colleagues.

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