Health education snapshot 3

• Inquiry
• Focusing inquiry
• Teacher inquiry

Inquiry

The context of change opens up many possibilities for teachers wanting to plan programmes where common contexts can be used for internal and/or external assessments. 

For example, the context of alcohol (or other drugs) could be used for teaching and learning leading up to assessment with AS91097 (Health 1.3) Demonstrate understanding of ways in which well-being can change and strategies to support well-being; 4 credits, Internal. This approach could be used as an alternative, or in addition, to assessment using AS90975 (Health 1.6) Demonstrate understanding of issues to make health-enhancing decisions in drug-related situations; 4 credits, External.

Focusing inquiry

Learning considerations could include change as a context, drug and alcohol education, resilience, engaging with external agencies that support wellbeing, unit planning (see:  progression of underlying concepts from level 6 to level 7). 

Context

See snapshot 2 for possible units of work or consider level 6 and level 7 context elaborations in this guide. 

Teacher inquiry

Overview of the year 11 NZC level 6 unit planning

Before moving onto context specific learning, students need opportunities to think about "big picture"

ideas. To support this thinking the teacher:

• Used a range of contexts relevant to the class (but being sensitive to particular traumatic changes some students had experienced) and explored with students how change impacts on each dimension of well-being and how the dimensions are then inter-related.
• Looked at situations beyond their community (for example, through a recent film or personal story from other resource material) and made additional comparisons between their examples of changes and the ones in the film.
• Organised school and local community visits with a selection of people to find out about the sort of help they can offer and ask questions about their work (for example, school guidance counsellor, social worker, kaumatua, kuia or other designated person connected with the local marae, church/cultural leaders, GP, family planning or other medical/psychological/relationship services, police, [as locally relevant]).
• Looked at the positive and negative ways people felt and responded to these changes and then identified a wide range of ways people can be supported during change – how they can support themselves (which included a range of stress management techniques and other self-management skills), how they can support others experiencing change, how communities can help people experiencing changes.
• Invited grandparents (and great grandparents) who lived locally to the parent-teacher-student conferences, coinciding with when the unit was being taught, to help students strengthen their support networks (that is, engaging significant adults in the learner's life).
  • Based on ideas arising from this task, the teacher planned and guided the students through a series of activities to develop understanding of a range of drug and alcohol issues.

Possible teaching and learning activities that are related to the context of drug and alcohol use: 

• To shift the focus of the learning to changes associated with adolescent drug and alcohol use, the students made a record of all the billboards advertising alcohol and shops displaying alcohol sales signs within a 2km radius of their school. After analysing the unhealthy messages they took from these signs the class decided to write a letter to the local council and the local MP to lay a complaint about the high number of these signs near their school.

• Previous connections made with the local community constable were continued with a Q&A session. Students prepared a series of questions somehow related to alcohol, drugs and the law – questions they did not yet have answers to – and interviewed the local police officer during a lesson. Each student was required to record the answer and, in the next lesson, write it up in a way that could be put on the school intranet so that all students, their parents, and whānau could access the information.  

• They used the internet (using websites recommended by the teacher) to find out information about the way alcohol, tobacco, and cannabis each affect well-being, and how a physical effect can lead onto social, mental, emotional, and spiritual impacts (for example).

• They viewed a recent documentary that looked at their community and others like theirs to identify all the ways drug and alcohol use impacts the people on these substances (in addition to the internet investigation above), and also how drug and alcohol use by people impacts on other people they know.

Looking back at their "alternative" newspaper article from the beginning of the unit, and the activities above, the students started to make a list of all the things that could be done to move towards having a community without drug and alcohol issues, like the one they described. On realising the task was huge the teacher suggested they could start with taking personal responsibility for their own actions. This led to further learning activities on host responsibility, using the Health Promotion Agency (ex-ALAC) website resource, and how to make healthy decisions, based on a selection of scenarios that had featured in their previous learning. 

Overview of the year 12 NZC level 7 unit

Students need opportunities to consider "big picture" ideas before moving onto context specific learning. 

The teacher:

• Guided the students through a succession of activities to recap what they understood from their previous learning about change and its impact on well-being.
• Explored possible change contexts with students using aspects of the process described in health education snapshot 1.
• Guided students to analyse the New Zealand Ministry of Youth Development (Ministry of Social Development) Youth Development Strategy to identify aspects of the policy document that had relevance for their learning programme.

Possible teaching and learning activities where resilience is the context for learning:

• Students were introduced to the concept of resilience, risk, and protective factors and how these can be thought about in relation to the socio-ecological perspective (that is, how a combination of personal, interpersonal, and societal factors are required to support young people experiencing significant changes in their lives). (See:  Health concepts)   
• Students were asked to identify someone in their family/whānau who has experienced a major change that resulted in a healthy outcome, and through an interview, identified a range of factors that helped that person manage the situation. These ways of managing were linked back to the protective factors. In situations where this family connection was not possible, students were encouraged to watch a film or read a story about someone experiencing a major change and complete the task using ideas from the story.
• With this additional knowledge about resilience, students selected the learning context(s) they would use for learning and assessment purposes. They specifically identified a major life change and then all the other changes that occurred as a consequence and how these, in combination, impact on well-being. For example, the students chose to focus their learning of resilience around the Christchurch earthquake.
• In relation to the chosen context, students developed knowledge of the various strategies and actions that can be used to help young people build resilience in particular situations and manage change in ways that result in healthier outcomes.
• To support the programme the teacher also organised for a number of people from the community to run workshops during one week of the programme – parents and local practitioners who provided medical, counselling and other support, self-help and caring services, and traditional and alternative therapy practices (for practical purposes this was combined with year 13 programme).
• The class later based their health promoting action (assessed using achievement standard Health 2.3 AS91237) around building resilience with the junior students, for example, teaching them a range of physical stress management techniques (or similar).

Last updated July 28, 2015

TOP