Date of Award

4-2024

Degree Type

Capstone Project

Degree Name

Doctor of Occupational Therapy (OTD)

Department

Occupational Therapy

First Advisor

Sara Clark

Second Advisor

Holly Grieves

Abstract

Accreditation Council of Occupational Therapy Education (ACOTE) standards are the rules and procedures occupational therapy academic programs across the country are mandated to follow and uphold (ACOTE, 2018). The standards are the framework to ensure quality education of the same rigor across OT/OTA programs preparing the future practitioners of occupational therapy. The ACOTE Standards (2018) have an “A” section related the resources, faculty experience, public policies, curriculum framework, and strategic plan requirements, a “B” section related to didactic program content requirements, a “C” section for fieldwork requirements, and a “D” section related to capstone requirements.

The purpose of this doctoral capstone experience (DCE) is to explore the academic fieldwork coordinator’s (AFWC) role in aiding their occupational therapy program to meet the “C” ACOTE standards (2018). During Western Michigan University’s (WMU) ACOTE accreditation on-site visit in fall of 2023 for their OTD program, ACOTE recommended finding a way to share more information and Level I fieldwork site options with current students, prior to the students being matched to their sites. This capstone experience focused on addressing Western Michigan University’s (WMU) need of educating students about level I fieldwork site learning opportunities. This resulted in a final creation of marketing videos of WMU’s level I fieldwork sites to provide students with better understanding of site expectations and daily operations.

A second focus of this capstone experience was to help all Michigan occupational therapy academic programs (OT and OTA) with their constant need for supporting fieldwork educators, as stated by two different ACOTE standards. Part of standard C.1.8 requires academic programs to ensure Level I fieldwork educators are equipped to support a student learning experience prior to the start date and part of standard C.1.11 mandates academic programs to ensure supervising OTs/OTAs are “adequately prepared to serve as a fieldwork educator.”

Many capstone experience hours for this project were spent understanding the purpose and mission of Michigan Occupational Therapy Education Consortium (MOTEC) for fieldwork educators. Then the second piece of the capstone project involved the development of an independent MOTEC website to increase Michigan's fieldwork educators' perception of support, access to resources and training courses.

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