Abstract

This paper examines the integration of undergraduate teacher education students into interprofessional activities with social work and pre-occupational therapy undergraduates. Like health professionals, school-based professionals work across disciplines daily and come together for critical decision-making on behalf of vulnerable and special needs students. Although evidenced-based pedagogy in interprofessional education (IPE) has become common in graduate and professional health education, less is known about its implementation in undergraduate education and with non-health-related disciplines. This article describes a 2-year interprofessional undergraduate simulation project with social work, teacher education, and pre-occupational studies students working prospectively in a K-12 school setting. Survey data found that students gained confidence in their disciplinary roles as well as in their abilities to communicate and collaborate effectively as a result of participation in the school-based simulation and related activities. The project highlighted the benefits of situating theory-driven undergraduate interprofessional learning in settings beyond healthcare and the need for developing assessment tools inclusive of undergraduates and relevant to a range of workforce environments.

Highlights

  • This paper examines the integration of undergraduate teacher education students into interprofessional activities with social work and pre-occupational therapy undergraduates

  • This paper describes benefits, challenges, and theoretical insights learned from a twoyear undergraduate interprofessional simulation project that brought together social work, ADVANCES IN SOCIAL WORK, Summer 2020, 20(2)

  • Data culled from the Likert scale questions showed 61.11% of students in Year 1 (Y1) and 61.0% of students in Year 2 (Y2) believed that their perception of communication and collaboration “changed a lot.”

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Summary

Introduction

This paper examines the integration of undergraduate teacher education students into interprofessional activities with social work and pre-occupational therapy undergraduates. This article describes a 2-year interprofessional undergraduate simulation project with social work, teacher education, and pre-occupational studies students working prospectively in a K-12 school setting. Interprofessional education is defined as when students from two or more professions participate in interactive, shared learning opportunities with the goal of improving future collaborative practice in a host of settings (World Health Organization, 2010). Students engaged in interprofessional interaction throughout their studies - immersive activities relevant to their future practice - maintain positivity about their skills for collaborative practice and teamwork (McFadyen et al, 2010; Pardue, 2013). IPEC’s expansion of team membership opened opportunities for teacher educators, among others, to engage in collaborative learning across fields beyond healthcare

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