Health teacher

HealthTeacher is a health curriculum for K-12 teachers at the elementary school, middle school and high school levels. It is considered useful by teachers regardless of whether they have received professional preparation as health educators. HealthTeacher targets teachers in a classroom setting, although people involved in home schooling, community-based health and mental health centers, and other health education venues have also found it helpful. The curriculum was created in 1999 and launched January 20, 2000.

Overview
The HealthTeacher curriculum delineates knowledge and skill expectations that are consistent with the Assessment Framework and National Health Education Standards for each grade level. It can stand alone as a school's only health curriculum, or it can support an existing curriculum as an adjunct.

HealthTeacher addresses the top six health risk behaviors identified by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC):


 * Alcohol and other drug use
 * Tobacco use
 * Physical inactivity
 * Inadequate nutrition
 * Actions that result in intentional or unintentional injury
 * Sexual activity that can cause unwanted pregnancies or infection with HIV or other STDs

Theoretical underpinnings
A number of psychological, developmental and learning theories and models formed the development of the HealthTeacher curriculum, especially:


 * Jean Piaget's stages of cognitive development
 * Lawrence Kohlberg's stages of moral development
 * Erik Erikson's stages of the life cycle
 * Albert Bandura's self-efficacy theory and cognitive learning theory
 * Wallston's locus of control
 * Julian Rotter's social learning theory
 * Lawrence Green's Precede-Proceed Model
 * Godfrey Hochbaum's Health Belief Model based on Kurt Lewin's level of aspiration theory
 * Darwin Dennison's Activated Health Education Model

Health teacher's lessons also make use of a variety of instructional approaches including role plays, cooperative learning activities, independent work, and classroom demonstrations.

Objectives

 * To build health literacy among those who teach health education. The curriculum can help teachers understand skills-based teaching and assessment and how to apply both in the classroom setting through on-line examples and tutorials.
 * To address the significant health and behavioral issues facing today's youth. The curriculum addresses knowledge, attitude, and skills development and provides opportunities for students to practice skills that promote lifelong health.
 * To help teachers overcome many of the constraints that now limit the provision of comprehensive and sequential health education in the school setting. Prepared lesson guides can reduce preparation-time constraints for teachers. Basic background that HealthTeacher provides can overcome training constraints or educational deficits and build on a teacher's current knowledge of a subject. The lower cost of Internet-based compared to print-based curriculum can lessen cost constraints and help teachers maintain an up-to-date resource for classroom education.

Development
Originators of the idea to place a comprehensive K-12 health education curriculum for teachers based on national standards on the Internet presented the idea to leaders in the health education community who were receptive to the idea and suggested consultants experienced in developing exemplary health education curricula. The developers established an Advisory Board to advise the project's development and implementation and hired a publishing firm experienced in developing health education materials to lead in writing the curriculum. Focus groups of teachers reviewed and commented on the developing lesson plans.

Advisory Board
The Advisory Board guided the development of the project so it would meet the needs of health educators, students, and administrators. The board has provided the broad vision for using this web-site to build health literacy for teachers.

Members of the initial National Advisory Board were:
 * American Association for Health Education - Becky J. Smith, Executive Director
 * American Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development - Janis Tomlinson, Health and Education Initiative Director
 * American Cancer Society - Mary Waters, School Health Division
 * American School Health Association - Susan Wooley, Executive Director
 * Cable in the Classroom - Donelle Blubaugh, Director of Curriculum
 * ToucanEd Publications - Kathleen Middleton, Assessment Consultant