Skills-Based Health Education

Skills-based approach to teaching K-14 health education prepares students for success in the 21st century. This practical course provides all you need in order to build, teach, and assess a health education program that will help your students become health-literate individuals, develop the 21st-century skills that they need for success in college and in their careers beyond, and maintain or improve health outcomes. This course meets the unique needs of schools, teachers, and students. It emphasizes an individualized approach to enhancing student learning and developing skills based on current research and national health education standards.

The course is arranged into nine modules covering three areas. Part I delves into the skills-based approach to health education, explaining the importance of the approach and how to understand student motivation. Part II focuses on how to teach life skills that are based on the National Health Education Standards: accessing valid and reliable information, products, and services; analyzing influences; interpersonal communication; decision making and goal setting; self-management; and advocacy. Finally, Part III explores how to use data to inform your curriculum planning, outlines the eight steps for curriculum development, and shows how to design meaningful assessments.

Skills Based Health Education offers evidence-informed strategies as it guides you through the critical process of supplying students with the tools they need for success in school and life. Course assignments encourage participants to integrate the course material with specific national standards for health education. Objectives for each lesson are modeled around standards-based learning as identified by SHAPE America. Evidence of learning is tied directly to stated objectives and is assessed via knowledge checks, learning activities, action plans, lesson plans, and reflective evaluations. The course is designed for teachers, school counselors, school nurses, and administrators of K through 14th-grade students.

NOTE: Required book must be acquired separately.

This course is applicable towards the Health Education Teaching Certificate.