Written by hedir on 04 February 2009
As many of you know I love politics. In fact there are a couple of things I think would be really neat to accomplish in my life.
a) Make a million dollars, b) Attain a power position in government
And now I have a clear understanding of how to achieve that ideal… Just 3 simple things I need to do.
1) Change my party affiliation to Democrat
2) Make it known that I would like to have a powerful position in Washington and ask my friends to tell people I am the best person for the job.
3) Quit paying taxes!
From the heart of the rockies
TDub
Tags: Comedy, Daschle, Geitner, Humor, Obama, politics
Posted in Generally Speaking, Humor, Instructions, Politics & Policy, The health education profession | 4 Comments »
Written by hedir on 01 December 2008
The interesting aspect of preparing health educators is that there is a wide range of skills that need to be taught. For those health educators who are going to be in the ‘teaching’ field (not necessarily just school health) is how to effectively teach a topic. If one acknowledges that knowledge is a poor predictor at changing behavior/lifestyles, then one needs to focus a lot on attitudes and skills. With that in mind, here is a simple point that I try to convey:
“The LESS the health educator talks, the MORE the student learns”.
I ask my students to think about this. Why would I make such a claim? It’s because in most instances effective instruction relies on input from students. When that is coupled with the very nature of varying values/beliefs and practices associated with health, it’s absolutely critical that you allow students to feel comfortable sharing their ideas and thoughts. I’ve seen too many health educators who dominate every aspect of discussion that they don’t take into account the unique perspectives from their students (and when I mean students I run the gamut from elementary students to senior citizens). The goal of the health educator should be to prep the students into a discussion as well as keeping them on task.
The best health education practitioner I’ve ever seen was one who could take 2-3 minutes setting the stage, then once the stage was set, peppered the class with questions and allowed them to dominate the discussion. All she did was throw a few questions out for clarification…but she did very little talking after “setting the stage”. Of course, she did take the last five minutes of the presentation (class) to summarize what was discussed…but she did very little talking. She did this time after time. How, one would ask, could she teach topics in any thoroughness? She did…she figured out ways to get the class to do the work…but she didn’t ’spoon feed’ the students. She allowed them to learn using well developed classroom strategies.
Anyway, welcome to the HEDIR Blog. Feel free to comment, argue, challenge, or anything you so desire about this idea.
Kittleson 12/1/08
Tags: instructional technique, skills
Posted in Generally Speaking, Instructions, Teaching | 6 Comments »
Written by hedir on 24 November 2008
The HEDIR Blog is open to all for viewing. For those who wish to post, they must register. In order to do that click the register button to the right. If you are already registered, just click the ‘login’ link (also to the right)
Kittleson
Tags: HEDIR, Registration
Posted in Instructions | No Comments »
