For my HEAL-405 (Teaching Methods in Health Education K-12)
class we got the opportunity to present several different health activities at
the 2018 VAHPERD (Virginia Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation,
and Dance) conference in Virginia Beach.
We prepared for this presentation weeks in advance, and practiced our
health activities many times in class, and even once at a different
professional development session for Prince William County Health &
Physical Education teachers. So, we had
a lot of time and opportunity to refine the presentation and feel confident in
the activities that we presented at the conference.
It was very important for our class to present at the
VAHPERD conference because Health education is currently advancing and it now
more focused on teaching students health skills. For many years Health education has centered
around teaching students from Kindergarten through 12th grade health
information only. However, teachers have
been missing out on teaching students how to be skillful with this
information. Our class taught four
different health activities that Health & Physical Education teachers can
utilize in their classrooms and each one focused on one or several health skills
that are featured in Virginia curriculum.
These health skills consist of decision making, interpersonal
communication, self-management, analyzing influences, goal-setting, advocacy,
and accessing valid and reliable information.
The teachers from all around Virginia that came to our presentation got
to learn four activities that each focused on one or more of these health
skills. This is wonderful because then
hundreds of students of all different ages all around Virginia are going to get
new health activities to help them learn valuable health skills that they can
utilize for life.
I also learned a lot about presenting at conferences and to
other teachers. We were unaware of
exactly what our presentation room would look like, or how many people would
attend our session. This meant that we
had to adjust our activities, and the flow of our presentation without a lot of
time. The room was smaller than we
expected, so for my partner and I’s station we had to move our tables out of
the way to the corner of the room until it was our turn to present our
activity. We also decided at the last
minute to present each activity one at a time, as opposed to breaking the
teachers up into stations and having them rotate. This experience was great, because these are
the exact same challenges that we will be presented with daily as Health &
Physical Education teachers.
Finally, I also learned to present my material
confidently. The idea of myself, as a
college student, presenting an activity to professional teachers that are
experienced is nerve-racking. However, I
felt confident in the activity that my partner and I were presenting, and I
knew that we had prepared and practiced our activity enough that it would be
very valuable to the participants in our presentation. This helped make our presentation run
smoothly, and it helped to show the value of our lesson more effectively to the
teachers. Overall, presenting at the
VAHPERD conference was a great experience, and has encouraged me to find more
opportunities in the future to be a leader in the Physical Education field.
