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Course profile

Occupational Therapy Clinical Practice and Clinical Reasoning (OCTY3208)

Study period
Sem 2 2024
Location
St Lucia
Attendance mode
In Person

Course overview

Study period
Semester 2, 2024 (01/07/2024 - 15/11/2024)
Study level
Undergraduate
Location
St Lucia
Attendance mode
In Person
Units
6
Administrative campus
St Lucia
Coordinating unit
Health & Rehab Sci School

Professional practice education is an integral part of the occupational therapy curriculum. Students will be provided with opportunities to build upon their earlier clinical coursework experiences and to expand their professional skills while learning to implement the roles and responsibilities of an occupational therapist within contemporary practice settings. Within these settings, they will also develop critical thinking skills in which students connect their clinical practice experiences to broader occupational therapy knowledge. Student professional practice placements will reflect the diversity of occupational therapy professional practice. Students may be allocated to placements within hospital or community-based services and these services may be in acute or long term settings within government or non-government organisations. During their professional practice placement courses students may work with people of various ages and stages of development across the life span. Students will be required to work in different models of service delivery which may involve direct service provision, case management, consultancy or project management or a mixture of these models of service delivery. Supervised practice education is an integral part of the occupational therapy curriculum. The World Federation of Occupational Therapy requires a minimum of 1000 hours of supervised professional practice education within an occupational therapy program for accreditation.

OCTY3208 provides opportunities for undergraduate students to learn to implement the roles and responsibilities of an occupational therapist within contemporary practice settings. A major component of the course is comprised of 390 hours of professional practice education under the supervision of a registered occupational therapist known as the 'Practice Educator'. This 390 hours is typically done over 10 weeks of full-time placement at 35 hrs per week and includes a range of learning support activities and/or attendance at tutorials presented by the Clinical Education Liaison Managers on designated Friday afternoons.

Professional practice education is an integral part of the occupational therapy curriculum. Students will be provided with opportunities to build upon their earlier clinical coursework experiences and to expand their professional skills. Students will be expected to develop skills in occupational therapy practice and the associated communication and self management skills. OCTY3208 is a prerequisite to CTY4104 - Advanced Occupational Therapy Clinical Practice.

Student professional practice placements will reflect the diversity of occupational therapy professional practice. Students may be allocated to placements within hospital or community-based services and these services may be in acute or long term settings within government or non-government organisations. During their professional practice placement courses students may work with people of various ages and stages of development across the life span. Students will be required to work in different models of service delivery which may involve direct service provision, case management, consultancy, and project management or a mixture of these models of service delivery. Supervised practice education is an integral part of the occupational therapy curriculum. The World Federation of Occupational Therapy requires a minimum of 1000 hours of supervised professional practice education within an occupational therapy program for accreditation.

NOTE: In the process of allocating clinical placements, students' email addresses may be provided to organisations in order to allow for planning and orientation purposes. This will be reviewed in line with UQ privacy policies.


Course requirements

Assumed background

Students should have successfully completed all previous coursework in BOccThy (Hons).

Prerequisites

You'll need to complete the following courses before enrolling in this one:

OCTY3102, OCTY3103, OCTY3104

Incompatible

You can't enrol in this course if you've already completed the following:

OCTY3206, OCTY3207

Course contact

Course staff

Celm (placements)

Timetable

The timetable for this course is available on the UQ Public Timetable.

Additional timetable information

Placements can commence from 24/06/2024 through to 07/10/2024. Placement allocation details can be found in InPlace.

Enrolment in OCTY3208 in Standard Semester 2 is for students commencing their clinical placement from 24/06/2024 to 19/08/2024.

Placement attendance hours and start dates will vary. Students should check emails or course Learn.UQ (Blackboard) site for updates on clinical placement requirements and or learning activities. Students will participate in 3 online tutorials during their placement. The timetable for the compulsory support tutorials will be posted on the course Learn.UQ (Blackboard) site.ᅠ

Aims and outcomes

To provide the opportunity for undergraduate students to develop professional practice skills through involvement in delivering services to occupational therapy consumers in contemporary practice settings.

Learning outcomes

After successfully completing this course you should be able to:

LO1.

Carry out your practice in a professional and ethical manner as a student occupational therapist.

LO2.

Communicate effectively and respectfully with all people you work alongside (e.g. service users, their significant others, colleagues, supervisors and other professionals).

LO3.

Apply critical thinking and clinical reasoning skills, including use of relevant theory, in carrying out the role of student occupational therapist.

LO4.

Apply principles of evidence-informed practice, including consideration of person factors, service context, available research and student therapist expertise, in providing and evaluating services.

LO5.

Plan, implement and evaluate service delivery processes to address occupational roles and performance.

LO6.

Reflect on practice and respond to feedback to improve level of competence throughout the duration of the placement.

LO7.

Identify and apply behaviours that indicate an emerging level of competence in identified core areas of occupational therapy practice as specified in the Student Practice Evaluation Form - Revised Second Edition, i.e. Professional practice, Self Management, Communication, Information gathering, Service Provision, Documentation and Evaluation/ Reflection.

Assessment

Assessment summary

Category Assessment task Weight Due date
Placement Student Practice Evaluation Form - Revised 2nd Ed
Final evaluation - Non graded pass/fail

Due within one week of completion of placement.

Placement Submission of placement documentation
  • Online
Non graded - Compulsory component

Within one week of placement completion.

Participation/ Student contribution, Tutorial/ Problem Set Online placement support tutorial questions
  • Online
Non graded - Compulsory component

Due date will be as per tutorial timetable.

Reflection Influences on decision-making in practice
Non-graded pass/fail

Within two weeks of completion of placement.

Assessment details

Student Practice Evaluation Form - Revised 2nd Ed

Mode
Activity/ Performance
Category
Placement
Weight
Final evaluation - Non graded pass/fail
Due date

Due within one week of completion of placement.

Other conditions
Work integrated learning.

See the conditions definitions

Learning outcomes
L01, L02, L03, L04, L05, L06, L07

Task description

Professional practice placement evaluation is based on the practice educators assessment of the student using the Student Practice Evaluation Form- Revised Second Edition (SPEF-R2). The SPEF-R2 is completed by the practice educator at half way to provide formative feedback and at the end of the practice placement to provide summative results and feedback. Students will be assessed on their professional practice performance across a range of learning domains and items as outlined in the Student Practice Evaluation Form - Revised Second Edition (SPEF-R2). Only the ratings at the end of the placement will be taken into consideration when awarding a pass or fail grade to the student.

Submission guidelines

UQ Students: Please access the profile from Learn.UQ or mySI-net to access marking criteria held in this profile. Students must submit their completed SPEF-R2, along with other placement documentation within one week of the completion of their placement. Submission will be via Learn.UQ (Blackboard).

Deferral or extension

You may be able to apply for an extension.

The maximum extension allowed is 14 days. Extensions are given in multiples of 24 hours.

Requests for extension of assessment due date must be made online, via your my.UQ portal at least 24 hours prior to the submission date. The request must also contain documentation satisfactorily supporting the request. If an extension is approved, you will be notified via your my.UQ portal and the new date for submission provided.

Late submission

Late submission of assessment items will attract a Fail grade, unless a formal extension has been organised prior to the due date.

Submission of placement documentation

  • Online
Mode
Written
Category
Placement
Weight
Non graded - Compulsory component
Due date

Within one week of placement completion.

Other conditions
Work integrated learning.

See the conditions definitions

Learning outcomes
L01, L02, L06, L07

Task description

At the completion of placement, students are required to submit the following to the Clinical Education Liaison Managers (CELMs) via Learn.UQ (Blackboard):

1.Learning goals.

2. Clinical Placement Documentation Summary.

3. Student Review of Placement.

4. Final SPEF-R2.

Submission guidelines

UQ Students: Please access the profile from Learn.UQ or mySI-net to access marking criteria held in this profile. Students must submit their completed placement documentation within one week of the completion of their placement. Submission will be via Learn.UQ (Blackboard).

Deferral or extension

You may be able to apply for an extension.

The maximum extension allowed is 14 days. Extensions are given in multiples of 24 hours.

Requests for extension of assessment due date must be made online, via your my.UQ portal at least 24 hours prior to the submission date. The request must also contain documentation satisfactorily supporting the request. If an extension is approved, you will be notified via your my.UQ portal and the new date for submission provided.

Late submission

Late submission of assessment items will attract a Fail grade, unless a formal extension has been organised prior to the due date.

Online placement support tutorial questions

  • Online
Mode
Activity/ Performance
Category
Participation/ Student contribution, Tutorial/ Problem Set
Weight
Non graded - Compulsory component
Due date

Due date will be as per tutorial timetable.

Learning outcomes
L02, L03, L04, L06

Task description

Students are required to participate in the tutorial series (online) designed to support their activities on their professional practice placements. This includes answering a minimum of 5 questions reflecting on their placement experiences. Dates for tutorial attendance are dependent upon dates of placement - Details will be available on Learn.UQ (Blackboard).

Submission guidelines

UQ Students: Please access the profile from Learn.UQ or mySI-net to access the requirements associated with this assessment. Submission will be via attendance as per tutorial timetable.

Deferral or extension

You may be able to apply for an extension.

If students are unable to participate they must contact CELM staff and will be required to complete tutorial reflection questions posted on the course Learn.UQ (Blackboard) site in lieu of participation and submit these to the CELM staff. 

Requests for extension of assessment due date must be made online, via your my.UQ portal at least 24 hours prior to the submission date. The request must also contain documentation satisfactorily supporting the request. If an extension is approved, you will be notified via your my.UQ portal and the new date for submission provided.

Late submission

Late submission of assessment items will attract a Fail grade, unless a formal extension has been organised prior to the due date.

Influences on decision-making in practice

Mode
Written
Category
Reflection
Weight
Non-graded pass/fail
Due date

Within two weeks of completion of placement.

Other conditions
Student specific.

See the conditions definitions

Learning outcomes
L03, L04, L05, L06

Task description

This reflection assignment requires students to use the Model of Context-Specific Professional Reasoning (Turpin & Iwama, 2011) to reflect upon two aspects of the OT process they have observed in their professional practice placement.

Submission guidelines

UQ Students: Please access the profile from Learn.UQ or mySI-net to access marking criteria held in this profile.

Deferral or extension

You may be able to apply for an extension.

The maximum extension allowed is 14 days. Extensions are given in multiples of 24 hours.

Requests for extension of assessment due date must be made online, via your my.UQ portal at least 24 hours prior to the submission date. The request must also contain documentation satisfactorily supporting the request. If an extension is approved, you will be notified via your my.UQ portal and the new date for submission provided.

Late submission

Late submission of assessment items will attract a Fail grade, unless a formal extension has been organised prior to the due date.

Course grading

Full criteria for each grade is available in the Assessment Procedure.

Pass/Fails Description
P

Course grade description: - Obtain a passing grade on the Student Practice Evaluation Form - Revised Second Edition (SPEF-R2) - Submit the required records and documentation (SPEF-R2, Clinical Placement Documentation Summary, learning goals and Student Review of Placement Form) - Participation and completion of a minimum of 5 reflection questions in each of the 3 compulsory online support tutorials. If students are not able to attend due to specific placement activities or illness, tutorial reflection questions must be submitted to CELMs via email. - Obtain a passing grade on the reflection assignment.

F

Course grade description: - Fail to obtain a passing grade on the Student Practice Evaluation Form (SPEF-R2) - Failure to submit the required records and documentation for the professional practice placement. - Non-submission of required reflection questions from compulsory online tutorial series. - Failure to attain a passing grade on the reflection assignment.

Additional course grading information

This course is marked as Pass/ Fail only using the Student Placement Evaluation Form - Revised 2nd Edition (SPEF-R2).

Students must also complete Personal Learning Goals and time sheets for each placement.ᅠ

The grade for this course will not be awarded until all documents described above are submitted.

Supplementary assessment

Supplementary assessment is not available for this course.

This course is Fully Exempt for Supplementary Assessment.

Supplementary assessment is not available for this course, regardless of the final grade achieved for the course.

Additional assessment information

Use of Generative AI in Assessments

Assessment tasks in this course evaluate students' abilities, skills, and knowledge without the aid of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Students are advised that the use of AI technologies to develop responses is strictly prohibited and may constitute student misconduct under the Student Code of Conduct.


Resubmission/Resit of Assessment Items

The School of Health & Rehabilitation Sciences supports the concept of resubmission or resitting of failed assessment items in specific and defined circumstances. In this course, the reflection assignment is eligible for consideration of the resubmission option if the assessment item was submitted on time. The resubmission of this item must be submitted at the agreed time on the agreed date. Failure to do so will result in a failing grade for the course.

Students who are granted a resubmission for an assessment item and do not submit by the scheduled date will not be granted an extension.


Submitting assessment in Blackboard and Turnitin

When assessment is submitted through Learn.UQ (Blackboard) you will receive a confirmation page as a digital receipt.ᅠThis information will also be sent to your student e-mail account.ᅠPlease ensure you keep this email.

When assessment is submitted through Turnitin you will receive a confirmation page displaying “Submission Complete!” and can then proceed to download your digital receiptᅠfrom yourᅠAssignment inbox. It is suggested that you save a copy of the receipt for your personal records.

Instructions on how to submit assignments through Blackboard and Turnitin are available at:ᅠhttps://web.library.uq.edu.au/library-services/it/learnuq-blackboard-help/learnuq-assessment. Please review this information so you understand how to successfully submit your assessment items.


Statement re Class Attendanceᅠ

As occupational therapists-in-training, occupational therapy students are required to develop a range of professional competencies that must be demonstrated as graduate therapists. The electronic course profile (ECP) for each OCTY course lists all the Occupational Therapy Australia (OTAL) Australian Competency Standards for new graduate Occupational Therapists (ACSOT), and identifies those specifically addressed in that OCTY course. Because OCTY coded courses aim to provide students with learning activities and experiences that support the development of these professional skills and behaviours, attendance at tutorials and other practical sessions is compulsory, and hence monitored. Marks and/or pass/fail requirements are assigned for attendance and appropriate participation.


Use of Generative AI in Student Placements

Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Large Language Models (e.g., ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot) are increasingly used in society. In terms of clinical placements, students are not permitted to use AI unless explicitly indicated by the provider that this use is permitted, and the parameters of use are clear. If these are not explicit, students are expected to consult with their practice educators before implementation to determine the acceptability of generative AI use and ensure that any potential risks associated with the intended use are addressed. AI is not a replacement of, or substitute for, professional reasoning or clinical skills. Human oversight is essential in its use, and to employ generative AI effectively and responsibly, students must understand how AI works, including its functions, data storage methods, and its impact on adherence to professional codes of conduct. 

If used on placement, students are responsible for any outputs generated by AI, such as clinical notes and reports, and will be held accountable for the actions of any AI that is used in clinical practice. This responsibility includes ensuring adherence to the relevant profession's code of conduct and ethical standards. Transparency about generative AI use is essential in placement environments. Students must follow the relevant policies and procedures of their placement provider. Students are reminded that they need to demonstrate their ability to meet the inherent requirements of the relevant profession, operate within its scope of practice, and ensure that client/patient privacy and confidentiality are maintained at all times. Under no circumstances should identifiable clinical information be uploaded to open or external AI platforms, as it is unethical and irresponsible.

Learning resources

You'll need the following resources to successfully complete the course. We've indicated below if you need a personal copy of the reading materials or your own item.

Library resources

Find the required and recommended resources for this course on the UQ Library website.

Additional learning resources information

Students should revise previous occupational therapy course notes, workbooks, clinical texts, and readings from earlier undergraduate courses as appropriate to their allocated professional practice placement or as recommended by the practice educator. In particular, workshop resources from OCTY3102 should be revised and used throughout the placement. The OCTY3208 Handbook outlines specific information for practice education and is available via the course Learn.UQ (Blackboard) site and should be referred to throughout the course.

Learning activities

The learning activities for this course are outlined below. Learn more about the learning outcomes that apply to this course.

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Learning period Activity type Topic
Multiple weeks
Placement

Professional Practice Placement

390 hours of professional practice placement. The bulk of this will typically occur over 10 weeks X 35 hrs per week or part-time equivalent. Start and finish dates may vary as negotiated with the student and practice facility.

Learning outcomes: L01, L02, L03, L04, L05, L06, L07

Tutorial

Placement Support Tutorials

Students will be supported by the Clinical Education Liaison Managers (CELMs) in Occupational Therapy to discuss a range of issues that arise on professional practice placements in online tutorials. Specific dates will be provided.

Learning outcomes: L02, L03, L04, L06

Lecture

Week 1 - Introduction to OCTY3208

Lecture/workshop to introduce course and assessment, particularly requirements for reflection assignment.

Learning outcomes: L03, L04, L05, L06

Additional learning activity information

Placements can commence from 24/06/2024 through to 07/10/2024. Placement allocation details can be found in InPlace.

Enrolment in OCTY3208 in Standard Semester 2 is for students commencing their clinical placement from 24/06/2024 to 19/08/2024.

Students will be placed in a range of professional practice settings under the supervision of one or more occupational therapists who will act as practice educators. Students will partake in a graded program of professional practice experiences and responsibilities. Students will be required to participate in online professional practice support tutorials at dates to be advised. Those students unable to participate in online tutorials must complete tutorial reflection questions and email to the occupational therapy Clinical Education Liaison Managers (CELMs)

Students are also encouraged to contact the CELMs during the placement course if issues arise. OT CELMs will be accessible via mobile phone/landline or email and will visit students at placement facilities and/or arrange appointments with students at The University of Queensland as required. CELM contact details can be found under 'Course Staff'.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Students who are scheduled clinical placement opportunities should note that this could occur at any time, and during semester breaks, and students are expected to be available. Placement allocations can change at any time so students should monitor emails for updated information.

COVID-19 vaccinations and pre-placement requirements: Please be advised that vaccination against COVID-19 is a recommended requirement for all students enrolled in this course. This is because it includes completion of work integrated learning placements that occur in facilities and locations where this vaccine has been mandated for students. Failure to complete your pre-placement requirements will mean that you won’t be able to attend your placement and it is not possible for you to progress in this course without completing your placement. It is not possible for UQ to provide you with alternative placement options if you choose not to meet the requirements of your placement provider. Therefore, it is important that you understand this when making decisions about your enrolment in this course.

Policies and procedures

University policies and procedures apply to all aspects of student life. As a UQ student, you must comply with University-wide and program-specific requirements, including the:

Learn more about UQ policies on my.UQ and the Policy and Procedure Library.