HOME | January - February 2005

OAC Report July/August 2005

By Mary Field

Another academic year is closing in on us. The education department in the OAC office is starting to look like a branch of Chapters bookstore because all course material that will soon be going to students is crowding the shelves.

The OAC annually registers approximately 200 students in the NAIT/OAC education courses. We thought we’d devote most of this edition of the OAC Report to items that will be of interest to both OAC/NAIT students and their supervisors.

This year, in addition to the academic source material, the OAC has developed supplemental support programs that are designed to augment the workplace mentorship upon which students already depend. These programs will be rolled out over a two-year period as the OAC develops and acquires the hardware, software and hands-on teaching aids that form part of the plan.

Some provinces that administer the courses locally provide classroom time for students. In those cases students have an opportunity for face-to-face instruction with exposure to a variety of lab tools and techniques they might not see in their workplace. Classroom time is not always practical due to the vast distances separating students nor is it always possible due to lack of availability of a qualified instructor.

“The Teacher Is In” is a long distance classroom that will provide students with a virtual teacher resource. Students will be able to speak with the teacher and other students via a teleconference hook-up. Class time will be scheduled at two-week intervals and students will be given a password to join the call at the specified time on the specified day. To give maximum impetus to the class students will be asked to submit any questions or problems they are having in advance. There will be a designated teacher for each of the four primary education programs: Eyeglasses II and I plus Contact Lenses I and II. Should their scheduling not permit attendance at the class, students may also contact the teacher via e-mail at a dedicated e-mail address. “The Teacher Is In” will be available to students starting with the Fall intake this year.

The NAIT/OAC educational programs rely on optician mentors in the students’ workplaces to coach the students in dispensing skills. In the past students have identified several difficulties in arranging exposure to the entire spectrum of skill sets required by the courses. As a result the OAC is developing a lab workshop component whereby the OAC, in cooperation with the provincial associations, will offer periodic lab classes for students.

The National Exam Committee has removed edging from their examination so applicants for registration are no longer required to physically edge a pair of lenses. They will still, however, have to be skilled in all the other elements of eyeglass construction including layout and lens insertion and these will be taught in the provincial labs. Some of the other vulnerabilities students have identified are lensometer skills and frame adjustment. Students are limited in their learning according to the type of equipment available in their workplace. For example, often students do not have access to a vertex distometer.

For contact lens students, developing familiarity with the fitting of rigid gas permeable lenses is a problem. Fewer dispensaries these days are offering their customers the choice of rigid lenses. The OAC regional labs intend to provide opportunities to work with rigid gas permeable lenses. As well, the OAC hopes to make available to students, loaner sets of rigid lenses.

There are several student resources already available online via the OAC and NAIT Web sites. The OAC ‘student resource’ page provides links to The Bausch & Lomb Photo Gallery, The National Eye Institute Photos, Images and Videos, Handbook of Ocular Disease Management, and The Laramy-K Web site that provides articles on fundamental optics.

If you go to the NAIT Web site which you can find via a link on the OAC Web site you will find LOGs Online. This is a collection of instructors’ notes for the various programs. The NAIT student portal also houses WEB CT instruction for the NAIT/OAC Advanced Practice I course.

The 2005-2006 academic year will be a pilot period for the new educational projects and we expect an energetic collaboration amongst students, teachers and supervisor/mentors.

And speaking of pilot projects, the NAIT/OAC Automated Sight Testing course has just completed its pilot stage in British Columbia. The first cohort of opticians will be writing their examination on August 17th. As part of the pilot, students have been asked to help work through any glitches that may be hidden in the material. The first regular enrolment of students will take place in September.

We have informed you previously of the new opticians’ regulation in BC that will allow opticians to independently perform automated sight tests for consumers and to use the results of those tests to make eyeglasses. The NAIT/OAC Automated Sight Testing course was developed to support that regulation. The Liberal government that introduced the opticians’ regulation was re-elected in May. This is a good sign for opticians who have been patiently waiting for notice of implementation. Keep an eye on the OAC Web site for breaking news on this very important issue.

NAIT/OAC offers the two-year Advanced Practice Sight Testing course as well as the Automated Sight Testing course. If you are interested in sight testing, call the OAC office about which course might be right for you.