Engaging Students in Large Health Classes with Active Learning Strategies Academic Article uri icon

Abstract

  • Creative K-12 health teachers can engage students in large classes by utilizing active learning strategies. Active learning involves engaging students in higher order tasks, such as analysis and synthesis, which is a crucial element of the movement toward what is commonly called “learner centered” teaching (Weimer, 2002). Health education teachers who develop student learning outcomes based on higher order objectives on Bloom’s Taxonomy often construct more engaging, learner-centered activities to facilitate achievement of those outcomes (Krathwohl, 2002). Relatedly, current best practices in health education emphasize the use of strategies designed to personalize and engage students for developing essential health skills necessary to adopt, practice, and maintain health-enhancing behaviors. This is evidenced in the National Health Education Standards (Joint Committee on National Health Education Standards, 2007). Using active learning strategies enables the health student to use information to create something new, evaluate and make judgments, analyze, and explore relationships. There are multiple teaching methodology textbooks and journal articles available that present theoretically based teaching strategies that can be employed in large classes to preserve an active learning environment that fosters student engagement. The purpose of this article is to describe some of these strategies that would be most applicable to a health class to help students meet state standards and the National Health Education Standards.

Publication Date

  • 2017-08-01