Authentic Play in the Community: Creating Mutually Beneficial Experiential Learning Opportunities

Pediatric experiential and situated learning activities in the community provide opportunities for physical therapy students to “play” and create meaningful context to the child and family, which is often missing for the learner. The community-based situated learning allows students to learn from peers, children, families, and community partners as they develop into entry level providers. The community environment requires students to adapt their thinking to the real-world context which allows students to create new meaning from past knowledge structures. The lack of resources and access to children and families is a common challenge for pediatric faculty which limits their ability to create pediatric experiential learning experiences. Pediatric faculty can benefit from strong community partnerships to provide a venue for experiential learning and a connection to children and families in the community. However, how do we ensure a bidirectional value to the experiential learning activity? Service learning is a framework for designing purposeful partnerships that provide mutual benefit for all the stakeholders, the students, the community, and the faculty. In this presentation, we will discuss the evidence surrounding the implementation and execution of service learning in physical therapy education. We will share examples of how we partnered with the community to promote student learning and support our community needs through authentic pediatric experiential learning experiences. We will explore how we can use meaningful opportunities to engage students through “play” and service within our communities that contributes to the community partners’ ability to achieve their goals.