Learning Area Health 1 (EDUC90441)

This subject introduces Teacher Candidates to the Victorian Certificate of Education (VCE) Health and Human Development, Australian Curriculum and the Victorian Curriculum which emphasises the role that health education plays in equipping secondary students with the knowledge and skills to take ownership of their personal health and wellbeing.

A strengths-based approach to teaching health will be explored to enhance Teacher Candidate’s knowledge, skills and understandings to teach health in secondary schools. Teacher Candidates will critically examine how definitions of ‘health’ are influenced by personal and family values, experiences, the media, public policy and school policies. They will explore the role of the teacher in helping school students to develop critical literacy and numeracy skills around issues pertaining to their health and wellbeing, nutrition, human growth and development and relationships and discuss the ways in which a socially just health curriculum functions as a tool for public health promotion. Numeracy skills include: the analysis of Health statistics, data, graphs and describing trends and drawing conclusions, applying knowledge of percentages in representative data and skills of collecting, recording, interpreting and presenting health related data in a range of formats such as graphs, tables, posters and charts, using current research.

Teacher Candidates will be introduced to subject-specific requirements around programming, assessment and classroom management. They will also create a variety of teaching and learning resources including unit and lesson plans, assessment tasks and various health promotional teaching strategies using a wide range of ICT tools which will demonstrate how they can expand learning opportunities for all students.