Students and faculty instructor present at health and education conference

Alyssa Walters ’14 and Carolyn Kerr ’15 joined Tammy Wynard, North Central College visiting instructor of health and physical education and coordinator of the health education and wellness programs, to present a session at the Illinois Association of Health, Physical Education, Recreation & Dance (IAHPERD) Conference held in St. Charles in November.

Their interactive presentation to sixth through 12th grade educator participants was titled “Scary Stories vs Story Telling: Effectively Using Real-Life Stories to Connect Health and Wellness to Decision-Making and Goal Setting.”

Wynard, Walters, who’s majoring in physical and health education, and Kerr, a psychology major, presented research that scare tactics do not work in most health education teaching settings and that using scare tactics to influence behavior waste time and money with little results.

Current studies, they noted, indicate using stories throughout the health education curriculum is very effective. They provided teaching techniques focused on connecting decision-making and goal-setting content to real life stories. Individual, small and large group activities and technology-based instructional strategies were demonstrated. The educators engaged in using stories from their own lives to see how they influence decision making and goal setting.

The conference attracted some 3,000 participants nationwide, including higher education professionals and teachers to children, adolescents and pre-professional students.
 
Wynard joined North Central’s faculty in 2011. She earned a B.S. in community health education/speech communications from Illinois State University and an M.S. in school and college health education from Indiana University.