Uses Strategies Designed to Engage Students

Description: An effective curriculum includes instructional strategies and learning experiences that are student centered, interactive, and experiential. Such strategies may include small-group discussions, cooperative learning, problem-solving, role-playing, simulations, and peer-led activities. Teachers can examine existing lessons to determine strategies that are teacher driven (or led), and teachers can identify ways to adapt strategies to be more student centered. Ensuring that new or existing lessons include frequent opportunities for students to think critically and be actively engaged may help to improve interest, passion, and motivation for learning. Lessons should encourage maximum participation, for the maximum number of students, for the maximum amount of time.1

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Example 1

For this example, the unit that is being taught is Sexual Health, and the HBO for the lesson is SH-5: Be sexually abstinent (HECAT Appendix 3). The specific focus of this lesson is avoiding becoming a teen parent.

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  1. Prior to this teaching activity, students have already learned about the benefits of being sexually abstinent and the consequences of being sexually active. The lesson will focus on the emotional, social, physical, and financial effects of becoming a parent.
  2. The teacher posts six pieces of chart paper in the room and labels them as follows: emotional, social, family, financial, education, and future.
  3. The teacher then gives each student a marker and directs them to individually go to each piece of chart paper and write at least one negative consequence of becoming a teen parent that fits under each category. 
  4. Students can repeat answers. After students have an opportunity to write at least one negative consequence on each piece of chart paper, the teacher reviews the answers with students, focusing on the answers that were repeated the most often. Students then complete an exit ticket on a sticky note, completing the following sentence stem: I don’t want to become a teen parent because . . .
Example 2

For this example, the unit that is being taught is Food and Nutrition, and the HBO for the lesson is FN-8: Limit foods high in added sugars, saturated fats, trans fats, and sodium (HECAT Appendix 3). The specific focus of this lesson is learning how to read a food label to help students select foods that are low in sugars, saturated fats, trans fats, and sodium.

  1. The teacher begins the lesson by teaching students the different information found on a food label (e.g., serving size, total fat, amount of sodium).
  2. The teacher divides students into pairs and provides each pair with two food labels from foods commonly eaten as a snack. Students compare the food labels based on serving size, number of calories, amount of fat, sodium, and carbohydrates. They are then asked to decide which snack is most nutrient dense and why. 
  3. Students share the information learned about their two snacks with the class, and explain which items they chose as the healthier snacks and why.

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