Universal design and learning together - an inter- professional teaching plan with engineer and occupational therapist students

Background: Environments are a critical factor in enabling participation. Universal Design is an interdisciplinary topic. Many stakeholders are involved in Universal Design with their different knowledge, skills, competences,... [ view full abstract ]

Background: Environments are a critical factor in enabling participation. Universal Design is an interdisciplinary topic. Many stakeholders are involved in Universal Design with their different knowledge, skills, competences, views and roles. What responsibility does and how can educational institutions qualify and prepare the students to work in this field?

Aim: Students will acquire deeper knowledge, could justify and critically reflect on universal design in collaboration with another professional.

Method: A one-week specialization in universal design curriculum was developed and carried through over the past three years with third year students from occupational therapist program (70x3) and engineering program (35x3) students. By analyzing specific areas, students should argue and critically reflect on universal design. Questionnaires and focus group were used in the evaluation.

Results and conclusion: Experiences from this interdepartmental and interprofessional cooperation has led to a constantly discussing how to proceed. We have worked our way forward to some common learning objectives and discussed whether the wording should be the same for the relevant subjects. The evaluations are very good. Both professions benefits from opportunities to meaningfully collaboration during professional education. The hardest barriers are the differences that study schemes entails and anchoring at the institutional level.