International Higher Education Teacher Award ^2024/25

The interprofessional cooperation of different professional groups in health care is imperative, to ensure a holistic understanding and treatment of patients. The collaboration of the occupational therapy and physiotherapy professions is therefore an important component in practice. Through the coordination of expertise, but also through the joint treatment, patients benefit from a high quality of therapy services and the health care system benefits from greater efficiency. For this reason, we felt it was a necessity to provide this course in an interprofessional way. Therefore, the curriculum includes the course "Interdisciplinary Casework", in the 6th semester both the occupational therapy and physiotherapy degree programs. The course aims on gaining an understanding of the therapeutic approaches from an interdisciplinary perspective avoid double or diverging treatments. Prior to the start of the course interprofessional literature was sent out to the 82 participant students to allow them to already engage with the content of the topic. After a plenary introduction, the students were divided into mixed professional groups of about 7 people to share their experiences of interprofessional collaborations during their prior professional internships. For this purpose, the lecturers prepared questions regarding the interprofessional collaboration to design the reflection process in the small groups. In a further step, the students worked on two case studies together and reflect on them from an interprofessional perspective. The questions for the second round of discussion encouraged the students to talk about how an optimal interprofessional collaboration could look like. Further predefined topics of discussion engaged students in reflecting on the benefits of interprofessional collaboration for patients, professionals and economy. The first two rounds of discussion in the small groups provided space for social interaction. Since the groups consisted of maximal 7 persons, each student had the opportunity to speak several times. In the final step, the plenary session was designed to discuss which structures and framework conditions were necessary in educational institutions and the health care system in Austria in order to be able to guarantee future successful interdisciplinary collaboration.

Methodology

In the course of the cyclical curriculum evaluations of both bachelor degree programmes in occupational therapy and physiotherapy and due to the feedback from the practice, the curricula have been changed to anchor the course "Interdisciplinary Casework" for both degree programmes in the same semester (6th semester). This made it possible for the course to be taught together and thus for interdisciplinary cooperation to take place between the lecturers and the students. The didactic implementation of the course "Interdisciplinary Casework" would have been a premiere even under normal (note: the time before the COVID-19 pandemic) conditions, as it was the first time that a course across degree programmes was planned with occupational therapy and physiotherapy students. The course was originally planned as a face-to-face course for a total of 82 students, 34 from the occupational therapy and 48 from the physiotherapy degree program. Adapted planning and implementation of the course due to the measures regarding the COVID-19 pandemic: When the IMC University of Applied Sciences Krems switched from presence to distance learning, the didactic and methodological approach for this course had to be revised. This was a great challenge, because especially for this course the cooperative exchange between the students was essential and the learning outcomes had to be ensured despite the digital implementation. The lecture hall was replaced by a Microsoft Teams group and the tables for the small groups were "transformed" into 12 virtual Microsoft Teams channels to support student learning and interaction. Results were collated via Microsoft Forms and Padlet instead of flipcharts.

Tools, equipment, technology used

The tools used were Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Forms and Padlet. Microsoft Teams was the main platform, starting with the preparation of the content on the topic, through the implementation in plenary as well as the case work in 12 small groups, to the joint reflection and conclusion. The case studies were presented and processed via Microsoft Forms. Questions were asked, which had to be answered in an interprofessional way. Microsoft Forms as well as Padlet were used for visualisation and summary.

Outcomes and outputs, main results

What happened in the course exceeded the expectations of the lecturers by far. The digital tools were able to support the course without delay. Using Microsoft Forms and Padlet, the results could be impressively summarized and visualized in an easy way. From the students' point of view, there was very positive feedback in the course evaluations, highlighting the possibilities to work together as well as the interactivity in the course. Furthermore they value the relation to their later professional activities.

Lessons learnt

The composition of the small groups should be balanced. We recommend assigning at least two people from the same profession to the small group. The number of members in the small groups should not be too high so that a good interaction can take place. Small groups with five to six participants have proven to be successful. Since some of the participants do not know each other, a clear structure and specific topics for the small groups are absolutely essential. Imperative is in particular an individual introduction in hindsight of the professional skills and experiences the students providing to the group. Furthermore it should be agreed on which persons of the groups will present the results in the plenary session. At the same time, the lecturers should encourage as many people as possible to discuss in the plenary session.

Adaptability and sustainability of the best practice (for other institutions)

This teaching concept could also be applied to other courses in occupational and physiotherapy bachelor degree programmes. A transfer to other health science courses with individual modifications would also be conceivable.

Promotion of best practice

Internally the project was communicated in the respective institute as culprint for other courses. Universitywide an introduction via the weekly newsletter as well as an entry in the map of good academic teaching of the Ars Docendi State Award for Excellent Teaching 2021 communicates the course. Additionally, the project was also published in the Austrian Journal of Occupational Therapy.

Scope and impact

• Course/department level

Since the goal of this course is to experience interprofessional collaboration in health care during training, the course involves all professions in the Department of Health Sciences.

6.1 Digitalization

• Digital skills development and assessment both general and profession-related, embedded in course design, in teaching and assessment

Reasoning: The fact that the course took place exclusively online resulted in the exclusive use of digital media. In particular we want to highlight the well received use of Padlet as a no frills easy entry for students to visualize in digital groups real time.

---

6.2 Internationalization

• NOT RELEVANT

Reasoning:

---

6.3 Inclusion and diversity, universal design

• NOT RELEVANT

Reasoning:

---

6.4 Sustainability

• NOT RELEVANT
• Environmental attitude, skill development and assessment either general or profession-related
• Sustainability aspects are considered in all phases of the learning practice - "hidden curriculum"

Reasoning:

3.3 Public contact datas

Name	Email address	Website
Larisa Baciu, MSc.	larisa.baciu@fh-krems.ac.at