OT5008 - Developing Skills for Practice

All learning on the BSc Occupational Therapy programme is designed to be transformative and experiential. Through practical, experiential and sometimes immersive approaches, you will practice specific skills (such as facilitating sensitive conversations or undertaking a range of assessments) with opportunities for repetition, reflection and feedback.

Technology enabled approaches (such as the use of video or Virtual Reality scenarios) will be used to enable you to experience close-to-life occupational therapy situations and practice your own skills in similar scenarios. Practical workshops will be used to try out specific techniques; for example undertaking different types of assessment or adapting an environment for people with specific needs. Individual and group reflection will be an important part of your skill development.

Experts with lived experience will be involved in your learning to help you to reflect on specific practice skills. We will focus increasingly on tailoring our professional skills to the uniqueness of individuals, their families, their cultures and contexts.

You will have the opportunity to gather examples of activities and evidence of your learning, self-appraisal and reflection to contribute to your student ePortfolio. This aims to enhance your learning by taking you beyond the limits of the individual module, and helping foster lifelong learning, as portfolios support inquiry, reflection and integration of learning. Items for your ePortfolio could include self-assessment or peer-feedback on your practical skills.

The identified module tutor, alongside the module teaching team, will structure learning opportunities to support your learning and skill development within the module and to assist you to work towards the module assessment. Where appropriate, contributors with lived experience and practitioners will also support your learning.

The module guide, the electronic reading list, and information communicated on the e-learning portal will all signpost you to resources to support your academic development.

All modules at Northumbria include a range of reading materials that students are expected to engage with. The reading list for this module can be found at: http://readinglists.northumbria.ac.uk
(Reading List service online guide for academic staff this containing contact details for the Reading List team – http://library.northumbria.ac.uk/readinglists)

Knowledge & Understanding:
1. Understand the professional skills of an occupational therapist and how they are tailored for the needs of individuals and communities

Intellectual / Professional skills & abilities:
2. Analyse, grade and adapt a range of occupations
3. Analyse the application of technology to occupational therapy practice skills

Personal Values Attributes (Global / Cultural awareness, Ethics, Curiosity) (PVA):
4. Reflect on the skills used by an occupational therapist to tailor interactions, interventions and services to people’s preferences and contexts.
5. Show a commitment to safe, effective, ethical and legal practice when learning practice skills

Formative Assessment
Opportunities to practice scenarios within simulation, with opportunity for peer and tutor feedback and reflection on video feedback.

Summative Assessment
Practical Examination

You will complete a practical assessment based on a range of pre-prepared scenarios and consisting of three components. The three components are:
- Submit a written intervention plan
- Submit an educational video about an occupational therapy intervention
- Articulate professional reasoning informing this intervention in an oral viva

Further information:
- You will have choice of a range of pre-prepared scenarios
- You will be provided with a structured template for the written intervention plan.
- The written intervention plan and educational video will be submitted in advance of the viva and reviewed by the assessor(s)
- Within the oral viva, you will respond to a set number of questions from a pool of questions communicated to them in advance.

Your summative assessment mark and feedback will be returned to you within the University standard of 20 working days, normally accessed through the module eLP site.

All level 4 modules

N/A

At each level of the BSc Occupational Therapy programme we have a ‘skills for practice’ module, supporting you to develop skills for professional practice. You will develop skills across three broad areas: building relationships; occupational therapy assessments; and occupational therapy interventions.

In this Developing Skills for Practice module, you will continue to develop skills to build relationships in situations which require adaptability and different approaches – including having conversations about change and intentionally considering different roles and facilitation approaches within groups. You will become increasingly familiar with a range of assessment approaches in close-to-life contexts and scenarios. Through increased practice of analysing activities and environments, you will identify opportunities for grading, adaptation and enabling positive risks.

This is a year-long module to support you to incrementally develop a range of skills, to make links to your practice-based learning/placement and to integrate learning across other Level 5 modules.

Teaching and learning will include a range of experiential and practical methods. The assessment for the module is a practical examination, designed to support you to further develop essential skills for occupational therapy practice.