A Cohort Model and High Impact Practices in Undergraduate Public Health Education

Developing curriculum that is more than a collection of courses necessitates articulating philosophy and principles that undergird curricular decisions. While faculty are accustomed to expressing ideas within their realms of content expertise, building consensus around educational philosophy and pedagogy may be less common but equally important to assure coherent curriculum. Such discussions lead to intentional curriculum. When attuned to intent and combined with high impact practices, curriculum is likelier to result in student success and engagement. Since public health by nature entails community interaction, opportunities to think and work in a variety of communities reflects the work in the public health arena. Building a community of learners in the context of a highly diverse urban campus requires very deliberate curriculum planning and design. The likelihood that learning communities will emerge spontaneously is reduced when only a small proportion of students live on or near campus, and most spend considerable time commuting. Virtually all undergraduate public health students have responsibilities beyond academics, including employment, family caregiving, religious obligations, etc. Since most undergraduate students in this setting are first generation to higher education, learning communities and other high impact practices become even more important to provide meaningful baccalaureate education. Such communities evolve most efficiently when integrated into the curriculum design. By implementing a cohort model, not only can faculty participate and facilitate the evolution of a community of learners, they can employ other high impact practices designed to enhance and compound public health content and processes. Undergraduate public health students in this setting take all of their core courses (32 semester hours) together in a prescribed sequence. Faculty have clear understanding about what preceded a course and what follows. Every course entails both individual work and group collaboration. Students come to understand each other's strengths and needs, and with rare exception, they support each other on the journey and share some mutual successes. Both expected and unintended outcomes of this approach are conveyed in this article along with a few cautions for those considering these strategies for undergraduate public health education

Community occupational therapists’ clinical reasoning: Identifying tacit knowledge

Abstract : Background: Occupational therapy interventions in the community, a fast expanding practice setting, are central to an important social priority, the ability to live at home. These interventions generally involve only a small number of home visits, which aim at maximising the safety and autonomy of community-dwelling clients. Knowing how community occupational therapists determine their interventions, i.e. their clinical reasoning, can improve intervention efficacy. However, occupational therapists are often uninformed about and neglect the importance of clinical reasoning, which could underoptimise their interventions. Aim: To synthesise current knowledge about community occupational therapists’ clinical reasoning. Method: A scoping study of the literature on community occupational therapists’ clinical reasoning was undertaken. Results: Fifteen textbooks and 25 articles, including six focussing on community occupational therapists’ clinical reasoning, were reviewed. Community occupational therapists’ clinical reasoning is influenced by internal and external factors. Internal factors include past experiences, expertise and perceived complexity of a problem. One of the external factors, practice context (e.g. organisational or cultural imperatives, physical location of intervention), particularly shapes community occupational therapists’ clinical reasoning, which is interactive, complex and multidimensional. However, the exact influence of many factors (personal context, organisational and legal aspects of health care, lack of resources and increased number of referrals) remains unclear. Conclusion: Further studies are needed to understand better the influence of internal and external factors. The extent to which these factors mould the way community occupational therapists think and act could have a direct influence on the services they provide to their clients

Reconstructing occupation after HIV infection: Lessons from the lived experience of women.

Reconstructing occupation after HIV infection: Lessons from the lived experience of women

Realizing Promising Educational Practices in Academic Public Health: A Model for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

This paper presents a conceptual framework and critical considerations for the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) in academic public health. Academic education for public health has undergone significant transformation over the last two decades as the demand for responsive and innovative public health pedagogy and training for preparing graduates to deploy an increasing array of skills has grown. The authors suggest that the role of schools, administrators, faculty, and educational staff in developing promising practices for teaching and learning in public health involves an articulated conceptual framework to guide the development and dissemination of scholarly, pedagogical innovations. Building on seminal philosophical foundations of SoTL, the authors conceptualize SoTL from the foundational belief that knowing and learning are communal tasks and that faculty are both scholars and learners in the practice of education. The paper advocates for SoTL as a form of engaged practice and scholarly inquiry that exists in contextually rich, diverse educational environments that abounds with uncertainty. SoTL is guided by an educational philosophy, values, and learning theories that envision educators critically examining themselves, their teaching practice, scholarly literature, and students\u27 learning to improve their teaching, enhance learning, and promote further inquiry. The authors suggest that SoTL involves the search for multiple forms of evidence and fosters dialogues on multiple interpretations and perspectives of the most promising practices of teaching and learning. The authors advocate for the term promising practices as an outcome of SoTL that supports and nurtures ongoing scientific discovery and knowledge generation, instead of supporting the search for best-ness in teaching and learning endeavors. SoTL should occur across formal, informal, and nonformal education