Summary of teaching plan
Since this proposal targets children of all grades (about ages 7 to 19 years old) in a school community, division of the school children were done by grade level. This is because some terms such as obesity and body mass index may be too deep for the younger population to understand. Also, we don’t want to have a large target audience in each teaching session in order to encourage more individual student interaction.
Since children ages 7 to 19 years are the target audience, the presentation first showed a video clip animation. It first started showing a person eating the usual unhealthy foods that people eat, and as the person continues eating, he will balloon up and get fatter overtime. The presentation ended with the same person losing all the fat he gained through proper food choices and exercising.
Since the animation showed a beautiful body at the end, it grabbed the attention of not only those who wanted to lose weight, but also those who wanted to achieve a fitter physique. A trim waistline and a pair of bulging biceps caught the attention of both girls and boys, especially those in their teenage years. The younger population, children about 7 to 12 years old also showed interest after seeing the muscular body, because they probably associated a good body to the superheroes they commonly see on television.
Since their focus was now on learning how to achieve a great body similar to the animation’s, a teaching method similar to a classroom setting was done. A classroom setting was a good idea since the target audience was already familiar with its learning environment. They were comfortable enough just listening to someone speak in front, spoon-feeding them all the information about proper nutrition and exercise. To prevent or reduce boredom, an interactive teaching method was also used. Once in a while, the teacher asked the students something that will require the audience to answer.
Definitions of important concepts such as obesity and overweight were discussed. The older population (13 years old and above) was also taught how to calculate body mass index and how to classify themselves as either underweight, normal, overweight, or obese. Calorie requirement based from different energy requirements were also discussed. The importance of physical activity was also included since calorie requirement would be adjusted based on physical activity. To encourage interaction, the teacher asked the audience who they idolize in the media. The teacher reminded the target audience not to idolize media personalities just because of what they look like. What’s important is to eat and exercise right in order to have a healthy body weight.
After the lecture on nutrition, simple exercises were taught. All of the students were required to stand up and do the exercises with the teacher. Simple exercises such as jumping jacks and jogging in place were shown. A 5-minute each warm up and cool down exercises were also taught. Overall, both the nutrition discussion (40 minutes) and exercise routine (20 minutes) were done in an hour.
Epidemiological rationale for topic
The goal of the teaching exercise was to improve the quality of life by maintaining or achieving a healthy body weight. This is because the statistics of being overweight and obese have become alarming, even to the younger population. In 2012, the National Institute of Health announced that 31.8 percent of the populations aged between 2 to 19 years are either obese (16.9 percent of the 31.8 percent) or overweight. About one-third of the boys’ cohort is either obese or overweight, while the girls’ prevalence of 30.4 percent is not lagging far behind. To put it simply, 1 out of 3 children between 2 to 19 years old are either obese or overweight (National Institute of Health, 2012). These children may still not feel the adverse of effects of obesity now, but it still doesn’t excuse them from the fact that obesity is a risk factor for high blood pressure, coronary heart diseases, certain cancers, gallbladder diseases and diabetes (Flegal, Carroll, Kit & Ogden, 2012). If these children do not learn how to take care of their health now, who else will be healthy enough to lead in the future?
Evaluation of teaching experience
Evaluation of the teachers was done by filling a five-point scale questionnaire. The options given were strongly agree, agree, uncertain, disagree, and strongly disagree. The questions were categorized by professional/instructional skills, classroom management, knowledge of content, and planning skills or readiness to teach.
Overall, a good rating of the teaching experience was objectively measured based from the questionnaire. Questions that elicit a strongly agree and agree scores are relevance of the topic was clear, the topic outline was organized well, the teachers have a good grasp of the topic, and the animation and instruction materials (power-point presentation) were helpful in supporting in the discussion flow.
An essay for suggestions or any type of feedback was also asked from the teachers. Some teachers consider that certain topics such as computation of body mass index should be removed since classifying someone based on their weight can elicit teasing. This simple teasing may lead to bullying in the future. Mathematical computations such as daily calorie intake also elicited groans from the audience and distracted them from the topic at hand.
The teaching experience has taught the instructors that though you only have one topic, how you would teach it would still depend on your target audience. In this case, it would depend on their age. Children don’t like calculations. Children love seeing illustrations—the more exaggerated the better. Teenagers are impatient. They want to know the answers immediately. Some get intimidated by seeing equations, no matter how simple. You shouldn’t immediately flash them an equation, reveal it to them slowly, one by one as to not overwhelm them.
Community response to teaching
The school setting was in an urban community so majority of the students have already been influenced by the media. Their perception of health is not based on eating and exercising right but from what you look like. The trimmer your waistline, the healthier you are. The bigger your biceps, the fitter you are. This is why some teenaged girls were surprised that being classified as underweight is also unhealthy.
There were also students who admitted to exercise a lot because of their desire to have a leaner physique. The teaching program made them realized that there is only an optimum amount of time to exercise to reach a certain fitness level. Too much exercise is also detrimental to their health because of the stress hormones that exercise brings to their bodies. Also, most of the macho men and women they see in media have taken steroids to increase their muscular size. Having big muscles is not an indication of good health.
Areas of strengths and areas of improvement
The community target for children of all grades is so large. It has to be more specific so that the topic outline will not be required to be constantly adjusted based on the age level of the student. But it was good that a lot of illustrations and animations were given out to grab the younger population’s attention. Discussion of the student’s perception of beauty was also commendable because this is where we were really able to grab their attention to focus on the topic.
References
Flegal, K., Carroll, M., Kit, B. and Ogden, C. (2012).Prevalence of obesity and trends in the distribution of body mass index among US adults, 1999–2010.Journal of the American
Medical Association. 307(5):491–97
National Institute of Health. (2012). Overweight and obesity statistics. Retrieved from http://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/health-statistics/Pages/overweight-obesity- statistics.aspx.com/sharing/good_passwords.htm
