Two claps and a Rick Flair . . . WOOOOOO!
This was the attention grabber Dr. Sally Jones used in our skills-based health education pre-conference session at the Wisconsin Best Practices Academy in July. I don’t know why but it has stuck with me and will always remind me of this amazing conference! (here is a link to the Rick Flair Wooo on YouTube in case you are interested)
One of the best parts of presenting at and/or attending conferences is the positive energy and enthusiasm that everyone has. I never fail to leave a conference energized, empowered and excited to continue the important work we are all doing.
There are so many great things happening in Wisconsin – they are working hard to get skills-based health education throughout the state. It was a pleasure to watch their training cadre, a group of skilled educators who are leading the way for other teachers, present their work – skills-based health ed is going strong in WI and it was inspiring to see how these teachers have taken the foundation and made it their own. Some people you want to follow on Twitter if you aren’t already (members of the cadre): Mary Wentland @prideandjoymary, Deborah Tackmann @deborahtackmann, Meg Whaley @13_meggy, Kaitlyn Bloemer @bloemerPE.
Not only that, but Holly and I had around 45 educators who spent 6 hours (on a beautiful summer day) at our pre-con session diving into all things skills-based! We were so impressed with the ideas, commitment, and passion these educators had to skills-based health education and for helping their students to be healthy and well.
We were so happy to see many of those same educators (yes, they actually came back to see us two days in a row!) and some new people join us for a shorter, one hour session on assessment. This seems to be an area that many people are curious about and find challenging – especially thinking about how to translate performance-based assessments into grades beyond rubric criteria. Even if you weren’t able to join us in Wisconsin, we wanted to share the presentations with you and are including a link to some of the resources that we used. To access the presentations and resources from Wisconsin, click here. We are happy for you to use and distribute the resources but please give us attribution!
More to come soon . . .
Skills-Based Health Education 
Thanks for the props!
We are so lucky and grateful to have had Holly and Sarah from Lighthouse Wellness and Health Education Consulting come to WI and work with our health cadre, as well as present at the Best Practices in Health and Physical Education Academy. During the conference, over and over again, I heard folks stating how easy and approachable they are, or they don’t have big egos. This is a testament to their passion and drive to normalize skills-based health education. Shifting from the traditional content method to the skills-based approach is hard work, but it is a must. For the health education profession to survive and to provide our students with the best possible knowledge and skills to be a healthy and well-rounded individual, it is what is required of us to do. Ladies, thank you for all the hard work you do to help us, and others across the nation, move in the right direction. We are excited about what is to come as we move forward on our skills-based health education journey. Two claps and a Rick Flair!