A Health Educator’s Blog

Today I had the chance to present research of personal interest to the syllabus review sub-committee.  The research I presented was entitled Online Learning and the Evaluation of Group Process by D.N.Phillip.  I became aware of this article from Stephen Downes OL Daily.

The particular aspects of the report I was interested in related to a categorisation of the levels of collaboration witnessed when students were instructed to work in groups.  I attempted to extrapolate these categories into the existing standards for achievement.  I’ve developed a simple concept map to represent this, and will post it below.

This interest in the evaluation of collaboration has stemmed from a desire to work the higher order processes experienced in group work into the assessment criteria.  I have developed this interest after attending a lecture by Erica McWilliam from QUT on the shift in learning in modern times.

Essentially, the report stated students would access information, add information or collaborate.  On reflection I see these behaviours in my class.  Some students tend to simply work from a plan developed by another, and others work with each other to build a plan.

Will this impact the syllabus refinement – only time will tell.  However I will continue to look for ways to assess the action of our integrated tasks

Recently I have been exposed to two health promotion schemes that have me thinking is there a place for including these types of services into our school program.  Considering we already include Queensland Health within the Specific Populations unit (Organ and Tissue Donation) it would seem as if this type of partnership is both possible and beneficial.  Development of a valid Health Education unit within such a partnership does require come work to ensure syllabis standards are not lost within the public exposure of a health promotion campaign.

These meetings also have me thinking that it is time to enhance the image and exposure of Health Education within our school.  Up until this point we have survived on one class a year that has filled simply from word of mouth promotion.  As a department we have not gone out and sought enrolment within the subject.  There have been a couple of reasons for this, but on personal reflection I believe it may be time to push the profile and worth of Health Education.  I will need to talk to my Health Education team and brainstorm ideas on how to do this.

The one problem I have perceived when thinking of how to incorporate existing health services is personal and team confidence within existing units.  We enjoy and value three of our four year 12 units, which leaves little room for adaptation.  It does however force a focus on the program as a whole and its relevance to both teachers and students within the school.

At this stage the class has reduced the list of Wikipedia health concerns to 10 they believe are relevant within the school as a setting. I prepared these 10 health concerns on separate templates, and stored them on separate memory sticks. I used memory sticks as students don’t have permissions to write to network spaces. At the start of the lesson I handed the memory sticks out to 10 students who logged on to a computer each and opened the documents.

The world cafe approach is a method to manage group work where group members change at each interval. I restricted them to 3 minutes at each station. At each station they were to brainstorm how our school contributed to each health concern. At the conclusion of the three minutes, group members were to move separately to new stations. I trusted the maturity of my students to do this without my direct intervention, however it could be achieved using different grouping symbols each time.

Maths will tell us that this activity will take at least 30 minutes. Changing group dynamics should ensure brainstorming continues up until the last station.

I threw in a challenge to their thinking mindset at the completion of the activity. They were to return to the station they were are last and this time brainstorm how the school community has already worked to combat tfhis health concern. This needed a shift in mind set from the world cafe activity which required careful management. To achieve this I implemented a break between the world cafe and the new activity.

What has resulted is a resource which we can base our further work in this unit on. The ten sheets represent information that will inform the development of proposals for investigation.

Once the class has gathered evidence on the Wikipedia list of environmental health concerns within the setting of our school, and we have decided which have significance for investigation, I host a discussion on how these concerns might disrupt our basic environmental health needs.  To begin this discussion I will search for a stimulus (on YouTube, MySpace or SlideShare) of an environmental health concern and ask them to propose which of the basic needs it would disrupt.  Begin with an easy example (such as a tsunami) which disrupts most needs, and then work through less drastic environmental health concerns (eg. building a new quarry) to encourage critical thinking.

We then look at the environmental health concerns applicable to the school, and discuss how it disrupts their basic health needs.  At this point they need to have an idea of evidence of impaired health equity from within the school.  This seems like a small stage in the learning, but I expect it to take two of my lessons.  It is largely discussion with irregular direct to write.  At the end of the learning they should have in their books a list of significant environmental health concerns, a description of how basic health needs are disrupted and a suggestion of evidence or research they could conduct for each.

In my classes, I often incorporate a discussion circle.  This involves us leaving the classrooms to find a comfortable area where we establish a circle.  In this circle, we discuss current issues, current study and other ideas without reference to text.

Why do I have a discussion circle:

• it allows students to offer opinion without judgement
• it provides a signal to the students of what I am expecting (they know what the discussion circle means)
• provides opportunity for students to share

These discussion circles are more frequent at the beginning of the unit, however I believe they could also be useful in group projects where personal evaluations can be discussed and opinions offered in a non-confrontational environment.

My discussion circles are based loosely on the “Community of Inquiry” approach.

In my health education class I incorporate random breaks from curriculum that I term “Asides.”  I believe they serve to strengthen the relationships and work in health education without directly using the content of health education.  My first aside this year is titled My Inspiration.

Each class member (myself included) is to talk briefly about something or someone who inspires them.  It is an informal sharing, but has previously resulted in students sharing some very personal information. In fact, last time I did this the class left the room crying!

Why do I do these asides?  I see they strengthen relationships within the classroom, as all members understand each other a little more.  This is also a way to get students comfortable with presenting information to the class (as is required in a seminar presentation.)

My inspiration is a close family friend who passed away after a very short fight with lung cancer.  She was a teacher aide (special education unit) in the school that I first taught, and I remain friends with her family to this day.  Of all the many reasons she inspires me, one of the most memorable is simply a saying she used to live by.

“Its difficult to find the good in someone if you don’t look for it.”

For me, powerful words that still resonate today.

Robyn Durrington, RIP and thank you for everything.

This first week of the environmental health unit is based in a more traditional approach of education where I deliver knowledge to the class.  I begin in this fashion to ensure an equitable access to what I consider the important background knowledge for the unit.  I base the beginning of each of my units within content provided by the World Health Organisation.

Initially I use the World Health Organisation to define Environmental Health.  Their page titled Environmental Health explains the generic definition, then I move the the section titled Public Health and the Environment to further inform that definition.  At this point I discussed the two interpretations of the terms environmental health;

• the health of the environment
• the impact of the environment on human health

I stress (and re-stress) that it is the second interpretation we are concerned with in this unit of study.  Once that is established I take the class through the WHO Environmental Health Fact File, which is a list of (somewhat repetitive) facts on environmental health.  This tends to open the students eyes to the problems of the world.  If there is time, I also ask them to read one of the articles posted on the website.  A written response to this is a possible outcome.  The article I tend to choose is entitled The Environment: where’s the risk, and where are the children safe?

I then introduce a list of six basic environmental health needs. I have lost where I resourced this list from, but it is still useful today.  The six basic environmental health need are;

• clean air
• clean water
• dependable food supply
• hospitable habitat
• uncontaminated living environments
• uncontaminated working environments

Later in the course we look at disruption of these needs as an environmental health risk.

Up to this point, I have been talking global health to them.  As our investigation will be focused on our school, I use WHO’s definitions of settings to begin to develop in the students the ability to define a micro-environment.  Within this section you can navigate to a specific article on school settings, however I tend to focus more on the general definition as it serves my purpose better.  We use the general definition to determine if the school can be considered a setting or not (and of course it can).

At this point, I turn to Wikipedia, and its list of Environmental Health Concerns.  This forms a basis for discussion, where we discuss if the listed concerns are applicable to our school setting.  At this point I’m not looking for a discussion on significance or solutions, simply an acknowledgement on whether the concern could be present in our school setting.

From this point, students will be paired and sent to gather evidence on a chosen environmental health concern.  Presentation and discussion of this evidence to the class will result in decisions on significance of the issue or not.  I hope that by doing this gathering of evidence, groups will not choose irrelevant foci for their investigations later this term.

The start of a new year when you have followed year 11s into year 12 is always interesting.  There are the relationships you wish to foster by engaging in conversation about their breaks, yet the impending urgency to begin work as their year is so short.

My teaching begins with a review of what I call the three key items of knowledge for Health Education.  This was particularly important this year as there are 2 new students enrolled in the class.  The three key items of knowledge (in my opinion) are;

1. Social Justice Principles
2. Social Determinant of Health
3. Ottawa Charter (including action areas, skills and aim of World Health Organisation)

I emphasise that everything we do in Health Education is based on understanding and working with these three items of knowledge.

This year I decided to do something a little different, and reveal all assessment (or at least the 2008 versions) to the class in the first lesson.  Their task was to identify key words (in particular verbs) throughout the task sheets, criteria and expected responses.  Now most teachers will be aghast that I showed the expected responses, however it was for only the first lesson and it was for the 2008 versions of assessment.  I don’t think this will cause a concern. Once the students had identified what they believed were the key words, as a class we collaborated on a word document each of the words.  As a word was repeated it moved one colour selection to the right (on the text color tag).  This allowed us to easily see words that were repeated.  As one would predict, the obvious words proved most common – evaluate, redress, reason.

There is an online service that could have completed this task in about 2 minutes, however the key aspect of this task was to have students engage with the tasks.  From this point I will collate them into a list according to Blooms Taxonomy, and we will identify the key skills they will need to achieve in Health Education this year.  This listing of key skills will be something we can refer to often throughout the year, and will also provide me a guide as I can develop learning that teaches the skills, not the content (as the skills will be important come QCS testing time).

The students responded to this reasonably well.  I think I did not provide them with enough time to read through the task sheets, and should have engaged them by setting a template based on Bloom’s Taxonomy and immediately categorising the terms into this.

Welcome, this blog will describe the thinking, teaching and management of a subject entitled Health Education within a secondary school.  Its intent is to provide information on what I percieve as the major influences on the teaching of Health Education, and how I am implemeting the syllabus within my own school.

This blog does not claim to be a prescriptive method for health education, just one person’s ideas.

I have taught Health and Physical Education for 13 years.  Currently I am a Head of Department within a secondary school, and I teach the Health Education subject.  I am also involved in review panel work for Health Education, and recently successfully applied to be part of the sllabus writing committee.  I beleive these roles provide me with a deeper insight into influences on Health Education.