PEDIATRIC EDUCATION SPECIAL SERIES: Use of Academic-Community Partnerships in Teaching Pediatric Physical Therapy

Abstract

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSEInteractive and clinically integrated teaching has long been used and advocated as beneficial component of entry-level pediatric physical therapist (PT) education.1-5 Community-based experiential learning experiences draw from models of clinically integrated teaching2 and from the scholarship of engagement and practice.6-8 These opportunities enabled students to become actively involved in authentic experiences in the community, which have been found to increase students' self-awareness, understanding of community, and their impact on others, as well as bringing about professional transformation.9 Such experiences also helped to reinforce material introduced in the didactic component of an entry-level pediatric physical therapy course (examination, evaluation, and intervention), allowed students to experience real-world examples of topics and issues addressed in the didactic component of the course (family-centered care, lifespan transitions, participation-based physical therapy, and community-based physical therapy services), and prepared students for further clinical experience with children and adults with pediatric-onset disabilities.2,8The purposes of this paper are to (1) describe an academic-community partnership comprised of 5 components within pediatric physical therapy course, and (2) discuss implementation of the academic-community partnership across 2 different student cohorts.Case DescriptionOur program of academic-community partnerships (Figure 1) was initially developed for Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) capstone research project with 2 PT students in 2012. The program was subsequently modified and utilized in conjunction with newly developed 2-credit pediatric physical therapy course in 2013. The program was used with this pediatric physical therapy course in 2013 with 55 final-year PT students and in 2014 with 68 students. Use of this program helped address multiple learning objectives for the pediatric physical therapy courseThis academic-community partnership program consists of 5 components: (1) experiential learning, (2) topic/issue selection, (3) literature review, (4) development of an evidence-based project, and (5) research utilization. The goals of this academic-community partnership program are to (1) provide opportunities for active student learning through experiential learning with practicing clinicians, (2) promote student and clinician evidence-based practice utilizing clinical expertise, patient/client values and circumstances, and available research, and (3) promote research utilization amongst students and practicing clinicians.Experiential learning. Small groups of 2 to 5 PT students were paired with local pediatric PTs from variety of practice settings. Schreiber et al describe experiential learning within pediatric physical therapy education as a form of practice-based education that provides exposures and opportunities for students to explore the work, roles, and identities they will encounter as future profession als. It is learning by doing, and occurs within relevant setting.5(p357) Practice settings utilized in this course during 2013 and 2014 included private homes (for early intervention services; 4 sites); public and private preschool, elementary, middle, and high schools (8 sites); inpatient rehabilitation (1 site); and outpatient facilities (6 sites).The experiential learning components of this program were adapted from existing models of community partnerships10,13 and interactive and clinically integrated teaching.1,3,4,5 Students completed total of 3 experiential learning visits for total time of approximately 6 hours. During these visits, students and clinicians were asked to focus on an overview of the child(ren) receiving services, the particular setting in which the child was being seen, examination and evaluation, and intervention. While it was preferred for students to have the opportunity to have hands-on experiences in their pediatric setting, given the nature of and considerations specific to each individual setting, students in some sites were encouraged to actively participate through handson work with pediatric patients/clients while other sites were not able to permit this type of interaction. …