Health Education: Curriculum and Professional Development for K-8 DoDEA teachers

K-8 Health Education: Teacher Professional Development & Curriculum Resources for Department of Defense Education Activity Schools Abstract: Primary Objective: With the national recommendation that students in grades Pre-K - 2 receive a minimum of 40 hours and students in grades 3 - 12 receive a minimum of 80 hours of health instruction per academic year, developing programs and modules that support elementary, middle, and high school teachers’ capacity to deliver health education is essential to helping students avoid or reduce health risk behavior. Unfortunately, many classroom educators are not properly equipped nor certified to teach health education, which further reinforces the need to develop educational materials based on the most effective method of skill development and one that utilizes evidence-based and data-driven practices that can be delivered by all classroom educators. The primary objective of this project is to create professional development modules and standards-based health education lesson plans for Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) teachers. Methods: The objectives of the project will be achieved by: 1. Developing 75 standards-based health education lesson plans, 2. Integrating evidence-based resources, learning activities, and content assessments into these lesson plans, 3. Determining logical scope and sequence of lessons across three grade level clusters (K-2, 3-5, 6-8), with each cluster constituting a module, and 4. Creating and publishing these modules digitally. In addition to lesson/module development, the research team will be piloting the curriculum with current UK Extension agents’ health education teacher contacts in KY in order to receive feedback on the lessons. Additionally, the project team will evaluate the extent to which participating teachers’ knowledge, awareness, comfort, and skills teaching health education have been affected. Key words: health education, teacher professional development, school health education