Learning Area Health Education 2

This subject has the following teaching availabilities in 2010:

This subject extends teacher candidates thinking about what is best practice in health education. Teacher candidates will continue to formulate a personal teaching/learning philosophy as they think critically about the relationship between various models of health and theories of human development. A focus on community and global health allows teacher candidates to consider the changing nature of national health debates and the role of the teacher in offering a variety of perspectives around these debates.

Teacher candidates will explore in detail the Victorian Certificate of Education (VCE), Health and Development study design and will develop a range of student-centred programming, planning and teaching strategies specific to VCE. Emphasis is placed on the importance of quality assessment to effective pedagogy. The subject outlines the current Victorian Essential Learning Standards (VELS) requirements for assessment and assists teacher candidates in designing and implementing an array of authentic, student-centred assessment strategies that cater for a variety of learning levels and styles.

Teacher candidates will continue to formulate strategies for helping secondary students become active agents of their own health and promoters of ‘good health’ within their individual communities.

On completion of this subject, teacher candidates will be able to:

• Show a broad understanding of the role that health education plays in creating health-promoting schools.
• Critically explore a number of global health-related issues and policies that impact on the lives of young people today and discuss strategies for harm minimisation.
• Explore a range of theories and critiques around the topic of human development.
• Analyse and design student-centred health education teaching resources that cater for the learning needs of students at Level 6.
• Apply VELS requirements to design and implement creative and effective assessment tasks suitable for a variety of different learning styles.
• Integrate the tenets of the health promotion and social justice into both curricular programming and classroom praxis.

There are 2 assessment tasks:

• VCE Unit of Work due end of semester, with individual components due throughout the semester. (2500 words equivalent, 60%)
• Critical rationale for unit of work, due end of the semester (1500 words, 40%)

This subject is not available as a breadth subject.

• Be skilled communicators who can effectively articulate and justify their practices as knowledgeable agents of change;
• Be flexible and able to adapt to change thorough knowing how to learn;
• Understand the significance of developing their practice on the basis of research evidence;
• Work in teams with skills in cooperation, communication and negotiation;
• Be independent of mind, responsible, resilient, self-regulating;
• Have a conscious personal and social values base.