iProvides Opportunities to Reinforce Skills and Positive Health Behaviors

Description: An effective curriculum builds on previously learned concepts and skills and provides opportunities to reinforce health-promoting skills across health topics and grade levels. This can be accomplished in multiple ways:

1. By incorporating more than one skill practice application at multiple grade levels (e.g., teaching goal setting at the 2nd, 4th, 6th, 8th, and 10th grade)

2. By integrating skill application opportunities in multiple health content areas (e.g., practicing decision-making skills in an alcohol- and other drug-use prevention unit and in a violence prevention unit)

3. By reinforcing health skills in other academic areas (e.g., teaching a health lesson on how to access valid and reliable health information, then having the librarian reinforce the lesson)

An effective health education curriculum that addresses age- and developmental appropriate determinants of behavior across grade levels, and reinforces and builds on learning, is more likely to achieve longer lasting results.1

image

Example 1

For this example, the focus is reinforcing students’ development of advocacy skills across grade spans. The lessons that are being taught are food and nutrition. In grade 6, the HBO for the lesson is FN-6: Drink lots of water. In grade 8, the HBOs are FN-6: Drink lots of water and FN-7: Avoid sugary drinks (HECAT Appendix 3).

image

1. The focus of this example is on the development and reinforcement of advocacy skills to support peers to drink lots of water and to avoid sugary drinks.

2. In grade 6, students learn about the benefits of consuming enough water and how to state a health-enhancing position about these benefits. The students are taught about and develop advocacy skills to encourage students to drink more water by creating a poster with a health-enhancing message supported with accurate information about the benefits of drinking water. These posters are displayed around the school.

3. In grade 8, students review the benefits of consuming enough water, learn how to identify sugary drinks, and identify the benefits of limiting the consumption of added sugar and sodium.

4. In addition, students review and learn how to state a health-enhancing position to improve the health of others, support it with accurate information, and persuade others to adopt this behavior.

5. Once students develop messages, the students work together in groups of two to create a public service announcement that can be shared on various forms of social media (e.g., Twitter, TikTok, morning announcements).


Example 2 

For this example, the focus is reinforcing students’ development of refusal skills at the same grade level by two different teachers. The lesson that is being taught by the 8th-grade health education teacher is utilizing refusal skills to abstain from having sex. The HBO for the lesson is SH-5: Be sexually abstinent. The lesson that is being taught by the science teacher is utilizing refusal skills to avoid the misuse of prescription and over-the-counter medications. The HBO for the lesson is AOD-1: Use prescription and over-the-counter medications correctly (HECAT Appendix 3).

image

1. The focus of this example is on utilizing refusal skills to remain sexually abstinent. Prior to teaching refusal skills, the health education teacher has taught functional information about sexual health, including the benefits of being sexually abstinent; why sexual abstinence is the safest, most effective risk-avoidance method of protection from sexually transmitted infections (STIs), including HIV, and unintended pregnancy; and the importance of setting personal limits to avoid sexual risk behaviors.

2. Students are taught the use of effective verbal and nonverbal communication skills and peer resistance skills.

3. Utilizing role-play, students demonstrate each of these skills. Students are asked to develop their own role-plays that effectively demonstrates a refusal skill related to sexual health.

4. Later in the semester, the science teacher delivers a lesson on functional health information about avoiding the misuse of prescription and over-the-counter medications, why it is important to use medications as directed, and reasons why people choose to abstain from misusing prescription and over-the-counter medications.

5. The science teacher reviews the use of effective refusal skills.

6. The students are given scenarios and asked to identify whether they are effective or ineffective in refusing to use prescription and over-the-counter medications safely. Students also explain why the scenarios were effective or ineffective, then the students rewrite the scenarios so that they reflect effective refusal skills and present the scenarios to the class.

To view in PDF format, please click here.