Learning from my class.
Recently I took the opportunity to openly and critically reflect on Health Education as a subject with my students. I was particularly interested in their perceptions in regard to the difficulty and workload of the subject. I have a productive relationship with my current class and trust them to be openly honest with me. So after a quick introduction I split them into small groups to discuss. I provided them with three specific questions, but welcomed comment and reflection outside of these;
- Is there anything about Health Education that is too difficult?
- Is the workload reasonable for students working towards an OP?
- If you could change one thing, what would it be?
The answers in relation to the subject (not my teaching or managing of the subject) surprised me. Generally the students did not find any of the concepts or subject matter difficult to understand. All students rated English as a much harder subject, and most listed other options as more difficult than Health Education. This surprised me as I am aware of a general perception amongst teachers that Health Education is a difficult subject. But I guess when at its essence, there are only two concepts that are required understanding for Health Education that it may seem not as difficult to students.
The workload was not perceived as excessive, with the majority of students agreeing it was reasonable. They recognised that particularly with integrated tasks the lessons experienced were directly related to developing their response to assessment tasks. The one concern with workload was the sheer amount of reading and research that seemed required for understanding of a range of health issues. (I have a system which eases this slightly for students, which I have explained in a post on my digital pedagogy blog – http://www.shanetechteach.edublogs.org)
There wasn’t anything they could suggest changing, although I believe this is mostly because I put them on the spot. If they continue to think I predict they will come forward in the coming weeks and tell me.
All in all, this is a very worthwhile process to undertake. If nothing else, it provides honest opinion on which to base critical reflection of personal performance.
