LEARN

REFLECTION 1

LEARN Reflection: iThink Project at Peterborough Country-City Health Unit

Melissa Amos
0539460
March 1, 2014

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The event that will be focused on in this LEARN reflection is my first lesson presentation for the
iThink campaign, through the Peterborough-County Health Care Unit. This presentation was the
first of 3 presentations to the grade 8 class at St. Martins Catholic Elementary School. This
reflection will address the hour and fifteen minute lesson and its outcomes.
To begin we will look back at the event by summarizing what occurred. Working with my
partner we compiled a presentation to address a tobacco. In doing this we not only aimed educate
the students on tobacco but also its health effects and how it impacts every aspect of a smokers
life. This presentation was compiled with the help of our preceptor as well as through a variety of
health resources in order to provide the most accurate and informed information to the group of
students. The presentation was a 75-minute session with the grade 8 class at St. Martins Catholic
Elementary School. We had organized a presentation and a few activities for the lesson in order to
make the presentation more interactive for the students and hopefully get them excited to learn
about the topic. We also hoped that by doing this they would be better able to retain the knowledge
they were taught in the lesson. To begin the lesson we introduced ourselves and explained why we
were there. After the introduction we handed out a pre-test. This pre-test had a dual purpose. The
first purpose was to spark their interest in the topic and make them eager to learn what answers
were correct. The other purpose of the pre-test was to help us evaluate where they stood with their
understanding of the topics. This will help us as an evaluation tool, we plan to hand out an identical
test at the end of the lessons to gauge their improved knowledge. This will help us to determine if
the presentations were effective in increasing their knowledge. This will be a quantitative evaluation
tool. After the pre-test was returned we began our presentation. Our goal of the presentation was
to actively involve the students and get them excited about the topic. We did this by using
discussion; this allowed the students to share their thoughts and opinions with us and allowed us to
understand where their knowledge about the topic stood. We tried to integrate as much discussion

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as possible by asking them to answer questions about the topic then providing the answers that we
had found ourselves. For example we often started off a new topic by asking them to define a topic
or idea such as addiction. We would ask them to define what they think addiction is, and we would
let them drive the conversation. Following what they would say we would reveal what how we
defined addiction. We also tried to relate concepts to their everyday life in order to make the idea
resonate with them better. One example of this is how we adapted the conversation to relate to
how smoking impedes the ability to play sports, as this is an important part of many of their lives.
We also used activities that stimulated the classes thinking by making them arrange timelines
instead of simply giving them to them. This forced them to actively think about the topic and
hopefully learn some surprising facts. I feel confident in the way that the presentation was
executed. As I was going into the presentation I was not sure what to expect and I was unsure
about how effective the lesson will be. However looking back I feel more confident in my ability to
present to the class as well as my confidence in presenting the material. I feel as though the lesson
was interesting for the students and got them excited. While we were play the Jeopardy with the
class they were all getting excited and were eager to answer the questions. In fact I also think that
the teacher enjoyed the presentation as she asked us a variety of questions after the presentation.
The main issue that we had to address in this presentation was how to adapt the
presentation to the target population. Providing a well-adjusted presentation that will be effective
for the population is an important aspect of health education. Providing the material to a group of
grade 8 students differs greatly from providing the education to a group of university students, and
for this project we had to make these adjustments. One of the most obvious differences was the
need to adapt the language to the literacy level of the age group. The point of the presentation
would be lost if the material was too advanced for the class and therefore the presentations as a
whole would be redundant. The need to adapt the presentation to a level that the students is

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important in order to help them understand their susceptibility to develop poor health should they
decide to start partaking in tobacco use. This relates to the aspect of perceived threat in the health
belief model. As stated by Glanz Rimer and Viswanath (2008) perceived threat (the combination of
perceived susceptibility and severity) has great significance for many health-related behaviours
(pg. 62). Therefore by educating the students at a level that they understand we are able to provide
them with the knowledge of the perceived threat for smoking, and hopefully this knowledge will
help them to not participate in the unhealthy behaviour as they will understand the effects it will
have on their body as well as understand their increased risk of various other health conditions.
Additionally using the approach of discussion allows us to support peer education on a smaller
scale. The students are able to share their experiences with each other and their knowledge. Peer
education is very influential, and can influence both negative and positive decisions. According to
De Vreede, Warner and Pitter (2014) focusing on positive behaviours youth can influence those
around them with similar characteristics to partake in these behaviours. This method has been
successful in the health field for changing youths behaviour regarding substance use (pg. 39).
Therefore by using discussion based presentations and having the students work together in
groups we are able to stimulate positive behaviours throughout the group and hopefully the
students upon completing the lessons will be able to share what they have learned with their other
peers and further the chain of positive behaviour.
I believe that the approach we took to this project works well with our population as well as
the material. I believe our goal to have the students actively involved helped to increase their
education and interest in the subject. I believe that this aspect should be preserved because it
appeared to be highly effective in our first presentation. However there are aspects that I believe
should be changed for upcoming presentations. One of which is I believe we should include more
peer education. This may involve asking the students to break off into groups and teach a concept

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to the rest of the class. This would allow them to gain experience by sharing information with their
peers as well as teach positive behaviours. Another aspect that I feel should be changed is
increasing the effect of tobacco use on the particular population to make it more focused on the
students themselves so they understand what exactly the repercussions of unhealthy behaviours
would be. For example relating second hand smoke effects to how it could effect their siblings and
parents not simply themselves. This increases their perceived threat and hopefully will prevent
them from engaging in the negative behaviours.
In the future possible new strategies include segregating the group. Dividing the class into
smaller groups may help to better address them individually and target the information to specific
effects and concerns each person may have. Also time managing allow for discussion allows the
presentation as a whole to improve. As rushing through the material because of time constraints
can decrease the involvement of the students as well as their motivation to both pay attention and
care about the topic as they may get tired of simply hearing the presenter talk about the topic.
Additional advice would be to consult a youth from the target population and find out what
interested them, as well as their friends, what television shows they watched and other influences.
This allows the presenter to relate the topics to everyday examples that the population can
understand and therefore make the presentation more effective and applicable to their lives, as
opposed to distancing them from the material by using examples that are irrelevant.

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Reference:
De Vreede, C., Warner., & Pitter, R. (2014). Facilitating youth to take sustainability
actions: The potential of peer education. Journal Of Environmental Education,
45(1), 37-56. doi:10.1080/00958964.2013.805710.
Glanz, K., Rimer, B. K., & Viswanath, K. (Eds.). (2008). Health behaviour and health
education: Theory, research and practice. John Wiley & Sons.