Master of Occupational Therapy Program

Our Beliefs

Our beliefs about occupation, health, occupational therapy, and social justice are informed by contemporary and established scholarship in occupational science and occupational therapy. In the MOT Tree, our beliefs encircle the tree as the blue of the sky and water, and the brown of the soil and roots. Just as these elements provide nourishment to a tree, so too to our beliefs enrich all parts of our MOT program.

• Occupation is complex, transformative, and situated in context.
• Health is multifaceted. Community is essential to health and occupation is a determinant of health.
• Occupational therapy’s domain of concern is occupation (performance, participation, and engagement); its theory and practice are holistic and informed by research.
• Social justice calls on us to ensure that engagement in occupation respects human rights and dignity. It is our duty to collaborate, speak up, and act with others to make visible social inequities and occupational injustices, and to transform oppressive systems.

Key Program Outcomes

Upon successful program completion, each UBC graduate will:

1. Enabler of Occupation: Demonstrate knowledge, skills, and attitudes required to enable occupation in a variety of settings through use of the occupational therapy practice process.
2. Scholarly Occupational Therapist: Demonstrate an understanding of the philosophy, theoretical concepts, models, and frames of reference of occupational therapy.
3. Researcher: Demonstrate an understanding of the research process in order to create and disseminate evidence with the outcome having relevance and value to the occupational therapy profession and/or the field occupational science.
4. Change Agent: Demonstrate knowledge, skills, and attitudes required for developing and delivering occupational therapy services in a complex, changing environment.
5. Professional: Assume and enact occupational therapy professional values and attitudes.
6. Communicator: Demonstrate effective verbal and written communication skills.
7. Advocate: Communicate the broad purpose and scope of occupational therapy practice consistent with the needs of the audience.

In the visual image, our key program outcomes are highlighted on seven leaves on the MOT Tree. Our program purpose is reflected in the remaining leaves of the tree, symbolizing the “room to grow” of our exceptional graduates as they embark on their occupational therapy careers as life-long learners. 

1. Transformative learning theory informs how our instructors facilitate students’ ability to connect new knowledge to past learning and experience. We actively engage and expose our students to divergent opinions and ideas, pushing them to be curious about and question the world around them. Our curriculum is designed to move our students to broader understandings of the value of occupation in the world and to developing the professional identity of occupational therapists.
2. Critical pedagogy challenges our instructors to make space for students to question the status quo and dominant ideologies. Critical pedagogy is woven through much of our MOT curriculum. For example, over a year and a half in the interprofessional Health Mentors program, MOT students, along with students from other health professions, learn from and with a health mentor, who is a person with lived experience with chronic condition(s) or disability, or a caregiver who provides care to a loved one. Students hear first-hand from the Health Mentors what it is like to experience the health care system in Canada.
3. Cognitive load theory describes the need for a goodness-of-fit between students’ capacity to learn, the content to be learned, and the methods used to facilitate learning. Our MOT curriculum is structured so that it builds toward increasingly complex concepts and applications of knowledge across terms, thus mitigating the possibility that, for example, students are tasked to come up with solutions to problems they have yet to encounter or have not received sufficient knowledge to be able to problem-solve effectively.
4. Constructivism explains how knowledge is formed, both through subjective and socially constructed understandings. Small group tutorials are a constant throughout the MOT curriculum and offer consistent, supported, and safe environments where students can explore with their peers and facilitators how they are making sense of new learning, how learning integrates across courses, and use case-based learning to facilitate their development of conceptual repertoires to aid their professional reasoning skills.
5. Universal design for learning (UDL) principles support inclusion, diversity, and equity for students in our MOT program. The aim of UDL is to expand teaching methodologies and curricular design to accommodate for learning differences and ensure equitable access in educational programming.
   • Creation of a respectful and welcoming climate for learning and the promotion of interaction among students and faculty.
   • Determination of the essential components of courses, curriculum, and the program.
   • Communication of clear expectations around learning and participation in the MOT program to students.
   • Use of and flexibility in teaching methods to consider diverse learning styles, ways of knowing, experience, and knowledge.
   • Exploration of the use of space and tools for learning to enhance opportunities for all learners.
   • Creation of multiple ways for students to access materials and demonstrate knowledge through instructional design and assessment methods.
   • Provision of timely and constructive feedback.
   • Promotion of interaction among and between faculty and students.

• Application Fees
  • Application Fee: $114.00
  • Supplemental Application Fee: $127.25
  • Total Application Cost: $241.25
• Tuition
  • $16,024.74 total or $2,670.79 in six installments over 2 years
• MOT program fees
  • MOT Program Fees (estimated), payable at the start of each academic year
    • Year 1: $726.00
    • Year 2: $468.00
      
• Other course costs
  • Estimated Fieldwork Costs:
    • Costs for travel, accommodation and daily living vary during placements that occur outside of your home campus location (est. budget $2000 monthly).
    • Students wishing to complete a placement in another province must submit a non-refundable fee of $250 plus tax to the National Fieldwork Placement Service (NFPS) for consideration.
    • Please note that payment of the fee does not guarantee a placement, and a separate fee is required for each placement requested in another province.
  • Estimated Books & Supplies: $1,000 annually
• Other living costs
  • AMS/GSS Extended Health Care Insurance Plan (all students): $264.63 annually
  • Estimated UBC Student Fees: $899.00 annually
  • Estimated Cost of Living: Starting at $16,453.00 annually

*All fees for the year are subject to adjustment and UBC reserves the right to change any fees without notice at any time, including tuition and student fees. In case of a discrepancy between this page and the UBC Calendar, the UBC Calendar entry will be held to be correct.

• Application Fees
  • Application Fee: $168.25
  • Supplemental Application Fee: $127.25
  • Total Application Cost: $295.50
• Tuition
  • $101,702.70 total or $16,950.45 in six installments over of 2 years
• MOT program fees
  • MOT Program Fees (estimated), payable at the start of each academic year
    • Year 1: $726.00
    • Year 2: $468.00

• Other course costs
  • Estimated Fieldwork Costs: Costs for all travel, accommodation and daily living vary during mandatory Out of Town placements.
  • Students wishing to complete a placement in another province must submit a non-refundable fee of $250 plus tax to the National Fieldwork Placement Service (NFPS) for consideration. Please note that payment of the fee does not guarantee a placement, and a separate fee is required for each placement requested in another province.
  • Estimated Books & Supplies: $1,000 annually
• Other living costs
  • iMED (for international students): $225.00 payable at the beginning of first year
  • AMS/GSS Extended Health Care Insurance Plan (all students): $264.63 annually
  • Estimated UBC Student Fees: $899.00 annually
  • Estimated Cost of Living: Starting at $16,453.00 annually (Vancouver)

*All fees for the year are subject to adjustment and UBC reserves the right to change any fees without notice at any time, including tuition and student fees. In case of a discrepancy between this page and the UBC Calendar, the UBC Calendar entry will be held to be correct.

• Go Volunteer
• BC Volunteering

• Aquafit For All
• Blind Beginnings
• Canucks Autism Network
• City of Vancouver
• Nikkei Seniors Society
• North Shore Community Resources
• Power For All Adventure Therapy
• Providence Health Care
• Reach Community Health Centre
• Residences for Independent Living Society
• Rock Steady Boxing
• Spirit of the Children Society
• The Kiwanis Pavilion Victoria
• Tonari Gumi (Japanese Community Volunteers Association)
• Vancouver Adaptive Snow Sports
• Vancouver Coastal Health
• Volunteer Prince George
• Windermere Care Centre
• YMCA of Greater Vancouver