OTD Curriculum

KGI’s innovative OTD curriculum is based on an integrative and systems approach, with occupation as the core subject to prepare students for the future of practice. KGI specializes in active learning, and our OTD students will experience a wide range of hands-on, engaged teaching and learning strategies with ample time to work in labs and on teams. We understand that key concepts can apply across all practice settings, and we have created curricular threads that will stream throughout the program.

KGI’s OTD curricular threads include:

1. Occupation as change agent and healing modality  
2. Optimized service delivery based on skilled professionals reasoning and evolving theory
3. Innovations in practice   
4. Research, evidence, and scholarship
5. Lifestyle medicine for whole person care
6. Cultural responsiveness
7. Professional identity, leadership, and life-long learning

In all five trimesters of didactic instruction, core courses addressing the occupational therapy process of framing and evaluation and intervention and outcomes will form an important core for working with pediatric, adult, and older adult clients. All evaluation and intervention courses will be matched up with robust fieldwork experiences to prepare students for practice. A range of elective offerings will allow students to explore and specialize in chosen areas of interest.

At KGI, we believe that innovators start here, and our OTD curriculum will train students to address real-world needs. Courses in leadership, advocacy, innovation, entrepreneurship, ethics, policy, and teaching will help prepare our students to be change agents wherever they practice. Research and evidence courses spanning three trimesters will provide the opportunity for students to conduct original research with a group of students and close faculty mentorship. These learning experiences, along with the strong clinical training courses, will prepare graduates for a distinguished career path of their choosing.

Our program learning outcomes for graduates include:

1. Provide client-centered care with occupation as primary therapeutic agent.
2. Analyze and conduct research to advance the profession and develop as a scholar of practice.
3. Demonstrate professional reasoning based on evidence, science, theory, and process to achieve therapeutic outcomes.
4. Enact the skills of professionalism, ethics, and life-long learning as foundations for professional identity and therapeutic use of self.
5. Implement and advocate for health promotion and prevention services to address society’s current and future occupational needs.
6. Act with cultural responsiveness to address systemic and occupational injustices for individuals, communities, or populations by advocating for equitable access and inclusion.
7. Serve as leaders to advance the occupational therapy profession through innovation, inquiry, and advocacy.

Required Courses List

1st Year Fall Core Courses – 18.5 Credits

1st Year Spring Core Courses – 19.0 Credits

1st Year Summer Core Courses – 13.0 Credits

2nd Year Fall Core Courses – 17.5-19.0 Credits

*Students must take one elective but can take two during the semester.

2nd Year Spring Core Courses – 16.5-18 Credits

*Students must take one elective but can take two during the semester.

2nd Year Summer Core Courses – 12 Credits

3rd Year Fall Core Courses – 14.0 Credits

3rd Year Spring Core Courses – 16.0 Credits

Fieldwork = experiential learning courses that will take place off campus in a variety of community based and healthcare sites as well as on-campus for simulated learning experiences.

Level I Fieldwork – Level IA, IB, and IC will take place during the first year. Level ID, IE, and IF will take place in student’s second year of the program. The Level I Fieldwork experiences will provide students with 220 clinical hours.

Level II Fieldwork – Level II fieldwork is experiential learning that will take place off campus in a variety of community-based and healthcare sites. Level IIA fieldwork will occur in the last trimester of the student’s second year. Level IIB will occur in the first trimester of the student’s third year. Level II fieldwork experiences are 12-weeks each following a full-time, site-determined schedule. Exact clinical hours may vary depending on site.

Doctoral Capstone Experience (DCE) – The DCE is completed during the final trimester of the program at a community partner site. The DCE is 14 weeks, full-time, for a total of 560 hours.