MsEmma Cowie

Emma’s teaching philosophy is informed by social constructivist approaches to learning, including Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development, where students are supported and challenged to become active, reflective, and collaborative learners. Her teaching aligns strongly with Deakin University’s commitment to inclusive, dynamic, and excellent education, with a particular focus on creating supportive learning environments that foster student engagement, critical thinking, and professional growth across diverse learner cohorts.

Emma designs learning experiences that intentionally scaffold students’ clinical reasoning, professional identity, and confidence through modelling, feedback, reflective practice, and authentic application of knowledge. Her teaching emphasises collaborative and dialogic learning, encouraging students to construct knowledge together and apply their learning to real-world occupational therapy contexts. She frequently integrates clinical narratives, practice-based examples, and reflective prompts to bridge theory-practice gaps and support meaningful engagement in learning.

Emma has extensive experience teaching across the Bachelor of Occupational Therapy program and is actively involved in curriculum design, practice education, and workforce development initiatives. She is committed to fostering evidence-informed, participation-focused, and neurodiversity-affirming occupational therapy practice through her teaching and supervision.

Learning and Teaching activities: Bachelor of Occupational Therapy

Lecturing and teaching across paediatric-focused, honours-level, and practice education units within the occupational therapy course.

Unit Chair: HSO205, HSO304, HSO416

Emma is interested in supervising honours and master’s research students in the following areas:

• Occupational therapy
• Interoception
• Sensory processing and sensory-based intervention
• Children and families
• Interprofessional collaboration
• Occupational therapy and schools
• Qualitative and mixed methods research