Teaching Students about Health Promotion and Disease Prevention
While the Kentucky Department for Public Health reports that the current risk for COVID-19 in Kentucky is low, students may be coming into classrooms with fears and misconceptions about the coronavirus and how it spreads. As a result, teachers may need support in how best to explain the facts and debunk rumors. Providing more information could help students not only more accurately gauge the threat, but also encourage health promotion and disease prevention in general.
The Kentucky Academic Standards for Health Education establishes standards that provide both content and practices related to health-enhancing behaviors that can prevent many diseases. K-12 standards-aligned instruction affords students opportunities to identify and describe ways to prevent the spread of disease-causing germs, identify characteristics of accurate and reliable resources for health information, and demonstrate behaviors that reduce or prevent health risks of disease.
Health Education Standard 1: Students will comprehend content related to health promotion and disease prevention to enhance health.
Content Comprehension: The acquisition of basic health content and functional health knowledge provides a foundation for promoting health-enhancing behaviors among Kentucky youth.
Health Education Standard 3: Access valid information, products and services to enhance health.
Practices for Accessing Valid Information: Access to valid health information and health-promoting products and services is critical in the prevention, early detection and treatment of health problems.
Health Education Standard 7: Practice health-enhancing behaviors and avoid or reduce health risks.
Practices for Health-Enhancing behaviors: Research confirms practicing health-enhanced behaviors can prevent many diseases and injuries and reduce harmful and risk-taking behaviors, such as abuse and neglect, drug abuse, prescription drug abuse and sexual activity.
Resources for Classroom Instruction
- The Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services provides valid health information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention concerning how the virus spreads and its symptoms, prevention and treatment.
- Kentucky Educational Television offers reliable resources for kids and families, including tips on proper hand washing and parental guidance on age-appropriate information for children on the virus and "germ-busting" habits.
- BrainPOP has a kid-friendly video explaining the coronavirus as well as related readings and lesson ideas on the topic.
- National Public Radio provides a comic exploring the new coronavirus.
- Education Week spotlights sample science, math and media literacy lessons supporting student learning aligned to content area standards.
- Teaching Tolerance offers additional resources helping educators foster constructive dialogue with students and addressing bias and anti-Asian discrimination.
These resources may be useful in providing accurate information on the virus and educating students on disease prevention.
As Interim Commissioner Kevin C. Brown suggests, now is not a time to worry or panic, but it is a time to be careful and to promote health-enhancing behaviors for districts, schools, families and students in Kentucky.
Revised Model Curriculum Framework Now Available
The Model Curriculum Framework (MCF), per KRS 158.6451, provides guidance for schools and districts in implementing educational best practice in a way that positively impacts student achievement.
The first section focuses on developing a system-wide process for developing curriculum aligned to the Kentucky Academic Standards at the school or district level. It includes information regarding the role of school-based decision making councils in curriculum development and outlines the major phases of a curriculum development process that can be replicated with any content area.
To support schools and districts in implementing this process, the Kentucky Department of Education has created a supplemental resource toolkit located in the appendix that includes a quick reference for each phase, templates, samples and other supporting documents.
The next section of the MCF, which will be available this summer, will address the role of professional learning communities, why they are important and offer suggestions to support implementation.
New Reading and Writing Resource Now Available: 'Composition in the Classroom'
Created by Kentucky educators, the 'Composition in the Classroom' document is designed to help Kentucky teachers and administrators gain a better understanding of the Kentucky Academic Standards for Reading and Writing’s Composition strand.
This resource takes an in-depth look at each of the three modes of writing, the three types of writing, and authentic audiences, forms and purposes. Each section on the three modes of writing contains examples of potential instructional resources that could be used in elementary and secondary classrooms.
Register Now for Curriculum Design and Implementation Guidance Leadership Meetings
In order to provide equitable learning environments for all students, it is important for schools and districts to translate the Kentucky Academic Standards into a guaranteed and viable curriculum. The regional educational cooperatives, in partnership with the Kentucky Department of Education, will host meetings in March for district and school leaders to examine a process for developing standards-aligned curriculum at the local level.
The meetings will focus on building an understanding of the role of standards, curriculum and instructional resources, components of a curriculum development process as outlined in the revised Model Curriculum Framework and the toolkit of supporting resources. The session also will include an update on additional new resources available to support standards implementation.
Click on the session to register.
-
March 17: Eddyville, West Kentucky Educational Cooperative Session 2
-
March 25: Shelbyville, Ohio Valley Educational Cooperative Session 2
-
March 26: Louisville, Ohio Valley Educational Cooperative Session 1
-
March 31: Florence, Northern Kentucky Cooperative for Educational Services Session 2
 ‘New KAS Resources for Reading and Writing’ Webcast Recording and Slides
In case you weren’t able to watch the webcast live last week, you can review the "New KAS Resources for Reading and Writing" webcast recording and slides at your convenience.
‘Creating Text Dependent Questions to Support Implementation of the KAS for Reading and Writing’ Webcast Recording to Release March 19
As we explore the new professional learning module, "Understand Text Dependent Questions," this webcast will demonstrate how to create text dependent questions that are aligned to the Kentucky Academic Standards for Reading and Writing.
An archive of the webcast and slides will be emailed and made available on the Standards Webcast webpage March 19.
|
