Community Teaching Experience: A Description of the Development and Design of a Unique Teaching Experience for Occupational Therapy Doctoral Students

Entry-level occupational therapy doctorate (OTD) students receive education and training to interpret and disseminate evidenced-based literature. However, these students are often missing the clinical experience to identify clinically relevant questions that impact occupational outcomes. Conversely, occupational therapy practitioners have the clinical experience to determine clinically appropriate questions but often encounter time, budget, and setting constraints on researching and learning up-to-date evidence-based practice assessment and intervention techniques. The purpose of this paper is to describe the development and design of an exploratory educational project in which OTD students utilized clinically relevant questions identified by local occupational therapy practitioners to disseminate evidence-based literature in the form of continuing competency in-services to clinicians as it related to their clinical practice setting. Nineteen sites participated and 33 one-hour presentations were presented to clinical sites in the local area and within the occupational therapy student body. Students reflected that this was a positive learning experience and a valuable component of the course.