Lessons Learned: Implementing the Shaping Healthy Choices Program With Teenagers as Teachers

Abstract

One approach that has been successful at improving youth health outcomes is the Shaping Healthy Choices Program, which features garden- and cooking-demonstration-based nutrition education curricula. The objective of this study was to assess the feasibility of implementing Shaping Healthy Choices Program curricula in 4-H using a teenagers as cross-age teachers approach. A teenagers as cross-age teachers model was employed to educate younger youth using the evidence-based curricula in 2 projects, each lasting 6 months over a 2-year period. Teenage teachers completed an initial 2-day training and reflection-on-action discussions following each educational session. Fidelity observations were collected to assess how well the curricula were delivered by teenage teachers. With a goal of 80%, overall fidelity was low (45%) and teenage teachers were able to deliver only the procedure component of the lessons with adequate average fidelity (84.6%). Poor participant attendance hindered presentation of additional data. Findings from this study suggest a need for more extensive and specific training for teenage teachers to implement the Shaping Healthy Choices Program.

Development and Pilot Testing of a Food Literacy Curriculum for High School-Aged Adolescents

“…One reason for developing Teens CAN was to create a curriculum to be applied in training teen teachers. A study implementing the Shaping Healthy Choices Program curricula within 4-H found that teen teachers were inadequate at facilitating the curricula with satisfactory program fidelity [ 24 ]. It was postulated that teen teachers required additional training, especially in regard to curricula content, before they could be competent facilitators [ 24 ].…”

“…A study implementing the Shaping Healthy Choices Program curricula within 4-H found that teen teachers were inadequate at facilitating the curricula with satisfactory program fidelity [ 24 ]. It was postulated that teen teachers required additional training, especially in regard to curricula content, before they could be competent facilitators [ 24 ]. Following participation in Teen CAN lessons, it is anticipated that adolescents will have improvements in relevant knowledge and skills that will enable them to effectively facilitate food literacy programming with younger youth.…”

“…Previous findings from a study conducted within the 4-H Youth Development Program (4-H) found that adolescents did not have foundational knowledge to effectively lead garden-enhanced nutrition and cooking lessons [ 24 ]. Focus groups completed in Australia found that adolescents had some prior food-related knowledge from participation in year-long required courses, but had limited opportunities to apply that knowledge through food preparation [ 25 ].…”

Connecting Undergraduates and Adolescents through Food Literacy: Development of a Cross-age Teaching, Service-Learning Internship

“…Due to issues that arise with Classroom Teacher Extenders, cross-age teaching is one model that can provide opportunities for program support outside traditional school site infrastructure (Lee & Murdock, 2001;Ruiz et al, 2020). Cross-age teaching is a teaching methodology where an older instructor teaches a younger student a general concept or subject matter (Arnold et al, 2016;Murdock et al, 2003).…”

“…Despite ongoing development of increasingly complex evidence-based health promotion programs by researchers, few of these programs successfully diffuse from the evaluation phase into practice (Osganian et al, 2003). Efforts to broaden the reach of these programs to serve more students have been met with countless challenges (Jones & Zidenberg-Cherr, 2015;Linnell et al, , 2018Radtke et al, submitted;Ruiz et al, 2020;Scherr et al, 2020). In response to limited funding and staff, local organizations have turned to classroom teachers to help support health education initiatives in the classroom (Auld et al, 1999;Kelder et al, 2003;Levine et al, 2002;Lewis et al, 2017;Mcgraw & Sellers, 1996;McKenzie et al, 2001;Parcel et al, 2003;Radtke et al, submitted;Scherr et al, 2020;Smith et al, 1993).…”