Advancing Health Education Pedagogy Through Life-Enhancing and Life-Saving Perspectives, and Backward Design

Abstract

The resources we need in order to grow as teachers are abundant within the community of colleagues. .. Good talk about good teaching is what we need-to enhance both our professional practice and the selfhood from which it comes.-Palmer (1998, p. 144) Health education curricula at universities across the United States promote good health practices; support academic success, productivity, and student retention; and advance attainment of high-quality lives free of preventable disease, disability, injury, and premature death. Whether framed by national, state, institutional, or accreditation standards, effective health curricula and pedagogy reflect a growing body of research that emphasizes (a) teaching functional health information, (b) shaping personal values and beliefs supporting healthy behaviors, (c) shaping group norms valuing a healthy lifestyle, and (d) developing essential health skills necessary to adopt, practice, and maintain health-enhancing behaviors (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2015). We must therefore design learning to maximally engage students in "worthy intellectual effort centered on big ideas and important performance challenges" as they develop "greater skill and understanding, greater intellectual power and self-reflection, and reach identified goals" (Wiggins & McTighe, 2006, p. 195). So crucial is health education that the 2015 International Conference on Health Promoting Universities and Colleges/VII International Congress asserted, "Health promoting universities and colleges transform the health and sustainability of our current and future societies, strengthen 647070P HPXXX10.

Excellence in the Design and Delivery of an Online Global Health Survey Course: A Roadmap for Educators

“…A useful conceptual strategy for designing a global health survey course begins with a “backward design” approach (Crossman, 2017; Ozdemir & Duffy, 2017). The goal of using a backward design is to encourage learning-centered teaching, moving away from more passive approaches aimed at a simple knowledge transfer from teacher to student (Davidovitch, 2013).…”