Student education
Feature
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The University of Brighton has been offering students the opportunity to carry out a remote leadership placement in the School of Sport and Health Sciences .
This has been reinforced by Health Education England ’ s guidance to highlight the importance of embedding leadership placements in practicebased learning ( HEE 2021 ) and RCOT ’ s Career Development Framework , which identifies leadership as one of the four pillars of practice ( RCOT 2021 ).
Supported by Dr Channine Clarke , Head of Practice Learning and Development , MSc ( preregistration ) students Harry Covill and Sinead Aksoy identified four main projects to lead : creating an interprofessional learning activity for occupational therapy and mental health nursing students ; writing an evidence-based document and creating a poster for simulation ; launching new Practice Learning Awards for practice educators ( receiving over 100 nominations ); and creating posters to support students on placement .
The posters were created by MSc ( preregistration ) students Chloe Godden and Codie Franklin and included top tips for educators on feedback , supervision , belonging , dyslexia , dyspraxia and dyscalculia .
Supported by Audrey Yong and Tara Sims , Occupational Therapy Senior Lecturers , Codie and Chloe worked on adapting a peer enhanced e-placement ( PEEP ), first modelled by the University of East Anglia , for the BSc and MSc ( pre-reg ) Occupational Therapy courses to run in 2023 .
Dr Clarke explains : ‘ While this was originally in response to the COVID-19 placement crisis , it became evident very quickly that these were rich and important learning experiences . As placement leads , we have been able to facilitate several placements and here we highlight the projects that four of our students have been involved in , working remotely in pairs and together as a group .’
Enhancing simulation and interprofessional learning
As part of the placement , an evidence-based document to justify and inform simulation-based practice within the School of Sport and Health Sciences was produced , which is also being used to promote simulation to other students and staff .
Harry explains : ‘ This has helped us to understand the benefits of simulation and inter-professional education , as well as further developing our skills to review literature and to work in an evidence-based way .’
The students visited the university simulation suites to get a feel for them , which provided inspiration for creating a new inter-professional education opportunity .
‘ We were surprised at how realistic the simulation suites were and the educational value that they could have ,’ Harry reflects . ‘ It got us thinking about a possible occupational therapy and physiotherapy inter-professional activity day and how it would work , which developed our critical thinking skills .’
With Channine ’ s support , they decided to use it as part of a problem-based learning stroke trigger for first year MSc ( pre-registration ) students .
‘ We plan to have a student role playing a patient and for the session to involve an initial assessment , transferring and mobilising , a home assessment in the activities of daily living kitchen , use of the physiotherapy gym and a group reflection ,’ Harry goes on .
Being given the autonomy to develop our own ideas and to help facilitate additional learning opportunities for students was really satisfying and has helped to develop our confidence .”
‘ This project is now being taken forward by the module and course leaders and will continue to be developed and organised by future students on placements , providing further opportunity for coconstruction of the curriculum with students , staff , local clinicians and service users .
‘ Being given the autonomy to develop our own ideas and to help facilitate additional learning opportunities for students was really satisfying and has helped to develop our confidence .
‘ Being confident in your ideas and willing to follow through with them is a key skill to have in clinical practice , especially when working in a multidisciplinary team .’
Launching Practice Learning Awards
Another of the projects the students worked on was creating and launching new Practice Learning Awards for the School of Sport and Health Sciences . The aim of the awards is to recognise and thank all those who support the students while on practice placement .
July 2022 OTnews 49