James Sunderland
Lecturer
Phone: 0800 762 786
Contact Me
I teach across the three years of the degree program. The courses I teach on include Adaptive Living Occupation, Humanities for Occupation, Community Longitudinal Fieldwork (fieldwork two), Participation in Occupation and Transition to Practice. My teaching has a strong focus on exploration of both the commonalities and differences that exists in individuals and communities engagement in occupation. The courses I'm involved with have a experiential learning philosophy where students are expected to be actively involved in a variety of occupations including cooking, horticulture, craft and design, game play and performance. Students plan and present activities for others both on campus and in community settings. Areas of the humanities and imaginative media and literature are explored to present and discuss multiple ways in which human occupation provide meaning, control and connection to the world and those around us. Digital technology is used in a number of these courses as a tool or a medium for engagement and recording of occupation.
I am currently looking at options for my Masters study where I would like to investigate the role of meaningful occupation in assisting life transitions for males.
Research Publications
Chapter in Book
Camp, J. & Russell, K. & Sunderland,J. & Flack, B. (2009). Simpa: A Very Useful Tool. Ako Aotearoa Good Practice Publication Grant e-book,
Link to web publication
Conference Contribution - Oral presentation
Carpenter, K & Sunderland, J. (2010). What Occupational Therapy has to Offer. International Network of Indigenous Health Knowledge and Development (INIHKD)Conference, Port Madison Indian Reservation,Suquamish Nation, USA, 24 - 28 May.
Conference Contribution - Poster presentation
Sunderland, J. (2007). Participation in Occupation One a course explanation. 'excite' Otago Polytechnic Student Showcase 2007, Otago Polytechnic Forth Street Campus. 15-23 November.
Oral Presentation (Other than Conference Contribution)
Russell, K., Camp, J., Murphy, E., Carpenter, K. and Sunderland, J. (2010). Forming a Meaningful Partnership: Explaining the Memorandum of Understanding between The Otago Polytechnic and local Runaka. School of Nursing, University of British Columbia, Canada, 18 May.
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