| |  | | ABOUT THE PROGRAM 
| The purpose of the field trip to KidAbilities was for the students to experience the sensory motor requirements of the activities and learn to plan and adapt sensory motore activities for their clients |
Why is Sacred Heart University's Occupational Therapy Program Unique?
The graduate program in Occupational Therapy is unique in its curriculum design, in its approach to learning, and in its responsiveness to societal trends and changes in the profession's clinical practice arenas and health care policy.
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.
Focus on Research and Evidence Based Practice
The program emphasizes research and evidence based practice and allows students to develop their research skills in a progressive sequence throughout the curriculum, under the guidance of experienced faculty and clinicians. This curriculum sequence culminates with the completion of the Capstone project, and the presentation of the results of their research to peers and faculty.
Responsiveness to Societal Trends
The Occupational Therapy Program strongly reflects consumer demands for integrated, coordinated and humane treatment. A person's physical, social, cultural, psychological, cognitive and spiritual systems are studied as an integrated whole and not as separate form each other or separate from that person's life circumstances.
Responsiveness to the Realities of the Marketplace and Health Care Policy
The program actively prepares students to develop proactive and entrepreneurial skills in marketing occupational therapy services and program development in new practice areas. Faculty-student-clinician collaborations are structured into the program to facilitate this unique undertaking.
Class Size and Structure
The maximum class size is 25. In lab the typical student to teacher ratio is 15 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. | |