Occupational Therapy & Art Education: Interprofessional Collaboration for Inclusive Remote Learning

Abstract

Interprofessional collaboration is considered best practice in all areas of health care and interprofessional education (IPE) activities are an essential part of pre-professional education programs. IPE activities typically occur between healthcare profession students but not between programs outside of healthcare where professionals are likely to collaborate such as occupational therapy (OT) and schoolteachers. Here we describe an innovative IPE activity between OT and Art Education students who collaborated to apply theories from each discipline to create remote asynchronous inclusive art workshops during the pandemic. Art Education majors developed the workshop curricula and OT students developed strategies to modify the activities to facilitate participation for children with disabilities. The collaboration between the students was highly beneficial to both groups as they were introduced to the objectives, modalities, and approaches of each discipline while enhancing understanding of the distinct value that each provide within the education setting, thus increasing the likelihood of developing stronger interprofessional relationships in the future. The project facilitated other essential learning including researching and applying best practices for asynchronous learning, adapting activities for specific participation or learning needs, incorporating adaptations using principles of Universal Design for Learning, and preparing family friendly resources in a remote format.