AOTA/NBCOT Education Summit - Atlanta, GA

10/10/2013

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Kudos to the AOTA and NBCOT for organizing the first Education Summit for OT and OTA faculty. Sessions focused on pedagogy and instructional design, capacity building, and foundations for OT/OTA education and practice. Although the ratio of OTA to OT related content was disappointingly low (approximately 1:15 for plenary sessions and 1:19 for poster sessions), I was able to make connections with like-minded individuals who are interested in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning and the possibility of collaborating. What questions do you have about teaching and learning related to OTA education? Here are some of mine...

What variables are predictors of success in an OTA program?

Are the characteristics of OTA students different than those of OT students? If so, in what way?

How is OTA education different from OT education?

Can we generalize the findings from studies related to OT education to OTA education?

Does the profession value research related to the education of OTA practitioners? 

I would love to hear your ideas.

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Learn by Doing

8/5/2013

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Long time no blog! Know that my intentions are always good. In a few short weeks the Roane State Community College's Occupational Therapy Assistant program will be welcoming 7 distance cohort students. These students will be using Adobe Connect classroom to participate synchronously with 20 on-campus peers for the face-to-face and hybrid courses. One of the classes that will be delivered through Adobe Connect is the Therapeutic Activities course. Last fall, I created a digital poster with Glogster as an example for an assignment and to use for orientation to the class. This past week, I updated the syllabus link in the Welcome to OTA 107 Glog. Today's challenge is how to ensure that distance students will be able to view it during the class!

Part 1 was successful! To the right you will see the link to the Introduction to OTA 107 Glog. Now, I will attempt to embed the webpage into Adobe Connect. Fingers crossed!
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Wed, Nov 28, 2012

11/28/2012

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This is a test blog post from the iPhone... Sending a shout out to my esteemed colleague, Susan Sain, MS, OTR/L, FAOTA for spearheading a very successful technology integration project with the second-year OTA students. Details to follow in the OTA Education Resource area in a day or two - stay tuned!
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Late Report from AOTA Annual Conference

5/10/2012

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Arrived home late last month from a tremendous trip to the AOTA conference Indianapolis with friend and colleague Sue Sain, MS, OTR/L, FAOTA. While there were many sessions and events worthy of a blogpost I wanted to begin with information about SoTL, aka, Scholarship for Teaching and Learning. Led by Andrea Bilics, PhD, OTR/L, FAOTA; John White, PhD, OTR/L; and Ann James, PhD, this session consisted of presentations and group discussions designed to foster collaborative research to provide evidence for best practice in OT education. In my own research I have found precious little published literature about OT education and no published literature about the education of OTA students! I am looking forward to the opportunity to dialogue with these scholars and participate in collaborative research to identify effective instructional methods.
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Happy Birthday to ITDE for OTA!

4/28/2012

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Welcome! Today is the birthday of ITDE for OTA - a place for sharing information related to occupational therapy assistant education, distance education, and instructional technology.
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