Core Teaching Practices for Health Education

Core practices—content-specific practices that offer strategies to support student learning—are common in many subject areas but have been curiously missing for health educators . . . until now.

Core Teaching Practices for Health Education is a compact and precise book that serves up effective core teaching practices for preservice and practicing health educators as well as for health teacher educators. Teachers can apply the evidence-based practical tips and strategies the minute they step into their classrooms; even veteran instructors will discover new teaching tactics that will be useful.

Core Teaching Practices for Health Education offers the following:

• Twenty-first-century teaching skills that are specific to health education
• Practices that are highly transferable across the spectrum of health education and applicable across grade levels
• Fifteen concise and practical chapters, each of which details a core practice in action, explains the practice, gives additional examples of the practice, and provides clear guidance on how to use the practice in health classrooms

Great Prep for Teaching Assessments Such as the edTPA
The text is a great resource for aspiring teachers as they embark on their student teaching semester and as they prepare for teaching assessments such as the edTPA, increasingly required in many states. They will learn how to design lesson plans, unit plans, and complete health education curricula to effectively teach health concepts and skills; this directly relates to the video portion of the edTPA. In addition, the book’s final two chapters directly relate to the Analyzing Teaching portion of the edTPA

Ideal for Preparing Curriculum
In addition, Core Teaching Practices for Health Education is ideal for teachers who are charged with creating health curricula for middle and high school programs—and for other teachers who are thrust into the role of health educators with little or no health education background.

Book Organization
Core Teaching Practices for Health Education is organized into three parts. Part I introduces the idea of core practices and focuses on planning to teach health education (e.g., big ideas, enduring understandings, essential questions, sequencing health content, assessment). Part II explores the pedagogy of health education, including organizational routines and procedures, building a safe and caring environment that is focused on learning, and adapting instruction to meet the needs of students. Part III guides readers through reflective practices on teaching and lesson improvement. Each core practice has its own chapter.

Perfect Companion to Two Other Guides
This affordable guide is a perfect companion to Essentials of Teaching Health Education, Second Edition, by Sarah Benes and Holly Alperin (Human Kinetics, 2022) and Health Education edTPA Online Preparation Guide by Stacy Furness (Human Kinetics, 2022). For future teachers in states that require the edTPA, these three resources supply everything they need to become successful health educators.

Preservice teachers, current teachers, and health teacher educators will find Core Teaching Practices for Health Education to be of lasting value as they use the book’s health-education-specific teaching practices to improve teaching and learning.

Audience

Reference for preservice and practicing health educators as well as health education teacher educators. Supplemental text for HETE courses.

Part I. Planning for Teaching
Chapter 1. Improving Your Effectiveness Using Core Practices of Teaching Health Education
Chapter 2. Big Ideas
Chapter 3. Using Enduring Understandings to Focus Student Learning
Chapter 4. Using Essential Questions to Promote Enduring Understandings
Chapter 5. Sequencing Health Content
Chapter 6. Teaching Health Content
Chapter 7. Assessing Learning

Part II. Pedagogical Considerations
Chapter 8. Creating Expectations Using Rules and Managerial Routines
Chapter 9. Building a Classroom Community That Is Positive, Safe, Caring, Inclusive, and Focused on Learning
Chapter 10. Facilitating Classroom Discussion
Chapter 11. Providing Feedback to Students
Chapter 12. Adapting Teaching to Meet the Needs of Students
Chapter 13. Developing Students’ Decision-Making Skills

Part III. Reflective Practices
Chapter 14. Reflecting on Teaching
Chapter 15. Being a Professional

Dr. Phillip Ward, a leading scholar in the area of core practices for health education, is a professor of kinesiology in the department of human sciences at The Ohio State University. He teaches courses in health and physical education teacher education. He has authored multiple books in health and physical education, including another Human Kinetics text, Effective Physical Education Content and Instruction (2018). He is also coauthor of key policy documents for SHAPE America (Society of Health and Physical Educators) and the National Association for Kinesiology in Higher Education (NAKHE), and he has authored or coauthored more than 130 research papers and book chapters and has presented over 150 papers at international, national, and state conferences. Dr. Ward regularly reviews the standards for health education teacher education programs for the state of Ohio.

Dr. Shonna Snyder is an associate professor and past program coordinator of health and physical education at Gardner-Webb University in North Carolina. She has been teaching health education methodology courses in higher education since 2005. She is a coauthor of “Appropriate Practices in School-Based Health Education,” a key guidance document in health education from SHAPE America (Society of Health and Physical Educators), and of “Student Recruitment for Physical Education and Health Education Teacher Education Programs,” a key policy document for SHAPE America and the National Association for Kinesiology in Higher Education. She has also recently coauthored “Health Education/SEL Crosswalk: Aligning the National Health Education Standards With CASEL Social and Emotional Learning Competencies” (SHAPE America). Dr. Snyder has 12 peer-reviewed publications, has presented at the national and state levels, and regularly reviews textbooks for several health textbook publishers as well as journal articles for journal publications. She has authored blogs and webinars and been a guest speaker in many educational settings. She recently served on the North Carolina SHAPE (NCAAHPERD-SM) board of directors and is helping develop the North Carolina SHAPE journal. She is also serving as the SHAPE America Health Education Council chair and has been a member of the Health Education Council, Health Literacy Task Force, SHAPE America–NAKHE HETE/PETE Program Recruitment Task Force, School Health Education Task Force, and the Annual Program Planning Committee.

Big Ideas Across Curriculum
Reflecting on Teaching
What to Do Once You Have Determined Where Students Are Relative to Your Content