Lesson Plans and Justification

1. Lesson Plan #1: Healthy Nutrition

2. Grade/Age Level: Grades 9-12, high school online Health

3. Subject Area: Healthy Nutrition

4. Time allotted for the lesson:  One class period or 45 minutes to 1 hour.

***With online courses, students are told to schedule one hour a day on each course, therefore it would be expected for the students to take anywhere from 45 minutes to one hour to complete this lesson.

5. Short description of lesson:
1. In this lesson the students will learn as well as understand the reasons healthy eating is important and what should be included a healthy and well-rounded diet including correct amount from each food group.

6. State Curriculum Standards met in this lesson:
1. 9-12.H.5.1.6 Defend the healthy choice when making decisions.
2. 9-12.H.5.1.7 Evaluate the effectiveness of health-related decisions.
3. 9-12.H.6.1.1 Assess personal health practices and overall health status. 
4. 9-12.H.6.1.2 Develop a plan to attain a personal health goal that addresses strengths, needs, and risks. 
5. 9-12.H.6.1.3 Implement strategies and monitor progress in achieving a personal health goal. 
6. 9-12.H.6.1.4 Formulate an effective long-term personal health plan. 
7. 9-12.H.7.1.2 Demonstrate a variety of healthy practices and behaviors that will maintain or improve the health of self and others. 
8. 9-12.H.7.1.3 Demonstrate a variety of healthy practices and behaviors that avoid or reduce health risks to self and others.

7. Instructional Objectives:

a.       Students will be able to learn and analyze what is included with a healthy meal.

b.      Students will be able to create and track a nutrition goal for the unit.

c.       Students will model selecting nutritionally healthy meals.

d.      Define key terms related to nutrition.

e.      Describe the nutrients the body needs and name a source for each nutrient.

f.        Rate and discuss your nutritional health.

g.      Identify ways to prevent or reduce the risk of certain diseases.

h.      List the benefits of eating healthfully.

i.        Read and interpret food labels.

j.         Plan healthy snacks and meals.

k.       Evaluate menus for healthy food choices.

Essential Questions:

a.       In what ways does nutrition contribute to overall health?

b.      In what ways does physical fitness contribute to overall health?

c.       What are the benefits of choosing healthy foods and beverages over less healthy foods and beverages?

d.      What are the benefits of physical activity?

8. Instructional Procedures:
1. Lesson Set: Why Eat Healthy? Interactivity: click and drag a list of benefits to either “True” or “False” then submit to see which ones truly are benefits of healthy eating.
2. Techniques and activities:  

·   Key terms

·    Explain vitamins and mineral

·   List, define and give example of each nutrient (Example: protein, found in eggs, beans lean red meat, chicken, fish, nuts, helps your body grow, build and maintain strength, builds and repairs cells, fights off infections, supplies body with energy)

·   Guiding questions (Example: how much protein does your body need a day? Do protein shakes really help your body?)

·   Interactivity (click and drag mouse over different body systems which then highlights that system within the silhouette of person and explains the benefits)

·   Interactivity type in favorite foods; see a list come up to identify if your food is on the High-Fat list.

·   Interactivity (reading labels) click and drag over a food label to see explanation

·   Short Video clips (vending machines, example of unhealthy snacking)

·   List of what makes a meal or snack healthy

·   Reading material and models of MyPlate

 Lesson Closure: We will analyze a food label and model an example of a healthy meal together as a class.

9. Adaptations for special learners: Students will be able to move, read, and watch at their own pace. Shortened material or accommodations will be available.

10. Supplemental Activities: My plate list of food groups graphic, color project percent of food group, organization food diary, and additional links to fast food nutrition facts and My Plate government website.
11. Assessment/Evaluation: Informal assessment will be occurring as we discuss, model, and analyze nutrition labels and example healthy meal. Formal assessment will be completed with teacher feedback on their week-long nutritional plan.

12. Learner Products: Students will then submit their own week-long log of nutritional meals and snack.

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1.  Lesson Plan #2: Components of Physical Fitness

2. Grade/Age Level: Grades 9-12, high school online Health

3. Subject Area: Components of Physical Fitness

4. Time allotted for the lesson:  One class period or 45 minutes to 1 hour.

***With online courses, students are told to schedule one hour a day on each course, therefore it would be expected for the students to take anywhere from 45 minutes to one hour to complete this lesson.

5. Short description of lesson:
1. In this lesson the students will learn as well as understand and implement the components of physical fitness.
6. State Curriculum Standards met in this lesson:
1. 9-12.H.5.1.6 Defend the healthy choice when making decisions.
2. 9-12.H.5.1.7 Evaluate the effectiveness of health-related decisions.
3. 9-12.H.6.1.1 Assess personal health practices and overall health status. 
4. 9-12.H.6.1.2 Develop a plan to attain a personal health goal that addresses strengths, needs, and risks. 
5. 9-12.H.6.1.3 Implement strategies and monitor progress in achieving a personal health goal. 
6. 9-12.H.6.1.4 Formulate an effective long-term personal health plan. 
7. 9-12.H.7.1.2 Demonstrate a variety of healthy practices and behaviors that will maintain or improve the health of self and others. 
8. 9-12.H.7.1.3 Demonstrate a variety of healthy practices and behaviors that avoid or reduce health risks to self and others.

7. Instructional Objectives:

a.      Explain the five components of health-related fitness.

b.      List the six skills related to fitness.

c.       Know and understand the different types of activity.

d.      Rate and discuss your physical fitness.

e.      Make a plan to improve your physical fitness.

8. Instructional Procedures:
1. Lesson Set: Why Is Physical Activity Important? Pre-quiz Fact or Fiction on benefits of physical activity.
2. Techniques and activities:  

·   Key terms

·    Define physical activity

·   Why physical activity is important.

·   Interactivity (click and drag mouse over images of people in a gym performing different exercises and explains what component they are performing).

·   Short video: example of the skills related to physical fitness

·   Image and links of ways to get physical activity throughout your day

·   Interactivity (click and drag a list of physical exercise to the correct level of activity)

Lesson Closure: We will discuss as a class and brainstorm their favorite activity and put them into the correct category (vigorous/moderate/low).

9. Adaptations for special learners: Students will be able to move, read, and watch at their own pace. Shortened material or accommodations will be available.

10. Supplemental Activities:  Levels of activity graphic, flexibility and aerobic typography, Balanced Exercise, and additional links to fitness tracking and information websites.
11. Assessment/Evaluation: Informal assessment will be occurring as we discuss, model, and analyze nutrition labels and example healthy meal. No formal assessment at this time. 
12. Learner Products: No student product submitted at this time.

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1. Lesson Plan #3 : Cardiovascular Fitness

2. Grade/Age Level: Grades 9-12, high school online Health

3. Subject Area: Cardiovascular Fitness

4. Time allotted for the lesson:  One class period or 45 minutes to 1 hour.

***With online courses, students are told to schedule one hour a day on each course, therefore it would be expected for the students to take anywhere from 45 minutes to one hour to complete this lesson.

5. Short description of lesson:
1. In this lesson the students will learn how to take their heart rate, what heart rate they should exercise at and create an activity log.
6. State Curriculum Standards met in this lesson:
1. 9-12.H.5.1.6 Defend the healthy choice when making decisions.
2. 9-12.H.5.1.7 Evaluate the effectiveness of health-related decisions.
3. 9-12.H.6.1.1 Assess personal health practices and overall health status. 
4. 9-12.H.6.1.2 Develop a plan to attain a personal health goal that addresses strengths, needs, and risks. 
5. 9-12.H.6.1.3 Implement strategies and monitor progress in achieving a personal health goal. 
6. 9-12.H.6.1.4 Formulate an effective long-term personal health plan. 
7. 9-12.H.7.1.2 Demonstrate a variety of healthy practices and behaviors that will maintain or improve the health of self and others. 
8. 9-12.H.7.1.3 Demonstrate a variety of healthy practices and behaviors that avoid or reduce health risks to self and others.

7. Instructional Objectives:
1. Explain and use the FITT formula.
2. Calculate your target and resting heart rate.

8. Instructional Procedures:
1. Lesson Set: Healthy Heart: facts about your heart, beats per minute; image that comes to mind when thinking of physical fitness.
2. Techniques and activities:  

·   Key terms

·   Define cardiovascular

·   Read article on college stadium stairs

·   Images and animation of heart and lungs when exercising.

·   Definition, explanation, and example of getting target heart rate.

·   FITT images and examples

Lesson Closure: We will discuss as a class and help students calculate their target heart rate. Explain and model assignment of activity log.

9. Adaptations for special learners: Students will be able to move, read, and watch at their own pace. Shortened material or accommodations will be available.

10. Supplemental Activities:  Find Target Heart Rate, selection Benefits of Aerobic Exercise graphic, and additional links to Forbes 10 Healthiest Sports and College Stadium Running.
11. Assessment/Evaluation: Informal assessment will be occurring as we discuss, model, and analyze target heart rate and activity log.
12. Learner Products: For feedback students will submit their weekly activity log.

*   Note for learners: This lesson plan template is adapted from the model that is recommended in the book Preparing to Use Technology: A Practical Guide for Technology Integration. 

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     JUSTIFICATION

1. User assumptions

·         This unit of instruction is for an online Health course at the high school level. The students can be anywhere from ninth to twelfth grade students in a public online school. The reading range can be quite broad, from down to seventh grade reading level to beyond high school reading level.

·         The need and use of graphics for this course will help introduce, implement and continually reinforce the concepts and objectives taught through the course as well as life-long healthy choices.

·         The assumption I have regarding the use of the graphics is that students have a basic knowledge of the topics discussed, and if they missed that day or reading material, the graphics will help introduce and familiarize student with concepts.  I also assume that they will know how to navigate and use the links.

2. Graphic description

·         For this unit I chose to use a blog (mostly because I don’t have an Edtech website). I am actually not a blogger or have never used one, but I made each graphic a link as well as the lesson plan pages and justification page.

3. Design process

·         The Color Project, Percent of Food Groups from My Plate, will help reinforce the percent of each food group the student should eat for a healthy and balanced meal and snack. In analyzing this graphic I wanted it to be a reinforcement image or one that would be resourceful in addition to the My Plate from the government (which replaced the Food Guide Pyramid). This shows the quantity or measurements of the My Plate guide in a pie chart following one of the four instructional functions of color (Lohr 265). In the government image the dairy is off to the side of the plate, so I integrated it into one pie chart showing at a glance the percent of each food group a person should intake.  I stuck to the colors of the My Plate to offer consistency to my students and prevent confusion between the different images and color coordination they have seen throughout the course.

·         The Shape Tool, My Plate list of food groups was also intended to reinforce as well as be additional, more specific information that adds to or enhances the My Plate from the government. This image listing the foods for the My Plate gives a list of food from each food group to further enforce and inform the students what needs to be included within a healthy meal and snack. Since the government image doesn’t list specific food items for each group I wanted to have something that accomplishes that. I also made sure to follow the colors used in the government image so it wouldn’t confuse the students. I am hoping that as they complete the nutritional unit, they will recognize without hesitation the percent of food items from each food group by associating it with the color.

·         Organization, Food Diary, is at the conclusion of the lesson because by now the students have read about the different food groups, the serving sizes of each food group per meal as well as the different choices within each group. They will then be assigned to track their food intake for one week. Going along with the color-coding I have stayed consistent with all unit, I chose to do the same for their food diary. The main order is chronological Monday through Sunday, but then I color-coded the different food groups and students are to place the food they ate during the day as well as the amounts into the correct cell within the table.  According to Lohr, “the table provides a spatial arrangement of data that makes the information easier to comprehend” (135).

·         CARP, Levels of Activities, is used to reinforce, further explain, and give examples of the different activities and what level or category they fall into. I did the contrasting yellow background with the black print in order to keep the attention and “focus on what is important by removing what is not important” that is why it is plain. I also aligned and did chunking and aligning to keep items together (Lohr, 199). Lohr also states that children learn better when corresponding words and pictures are presented near rather than far from each other (199).

·         Typography, Aerobic and Flexibility, are the two I chose from that week’s assignment because I think they were my best, but also coordinated with my lessons much better. The “aerobic” is a combination of google images, Wordart and Microsoft word. I wanted this word to represent a variety of ways the students could get aerobic exercise. The “A” is made of snow skis, which is an aerobic exercise, especially if you skin up, then ski down! The “o” is made from a bicycle tire, another form of aerobic exercise and the dot on the “i” is a basketball. I also made the “C” slanted trying to portray the image of running. I also made this many different colors so the students can see there is such a variety of ways to get their aerobic exercise, and most importantly…have fun while doing it! Flexibility is one aspect of their physical health, so as you look at the work “flexibility” it is stretched representing our muscles and fibers as the students stretch. We discuss how important it is to loosen your muscles to prevent injury and to keep range of motion wide. I actually used Wordart for this.

·         White Space, Balanced Exercise Includes is also used to reinforce the content taught within lesson plan 2. We will discuss and read about all the aspects of being physically healthy; we also discuss the different components to focus on that should be included in a successful exercise regimen. I tried to keep symmetry where “everything is in equilibrium; all elements are equal” and although Lohr also describes symmetry as “boring” (275). I felt that keeping it symmetrical with the white space by separating each component reinforces the importance of balancing your exercise regimen with all aspects.

·         ACE with PAT, Find Target Heart Rate, is more detailed and informative than the other graphics I have used. Although we discuss and I model with the students how to find their target heart rate in class, they still need to do some from home, specifically learning their resting heart rate. In the analyze stage I wanted them to know how to find their Target Heart Rate which is the rate to be used while exercising (p 75). The problem with this is that your previous physical activity level or current heath state determines what you times your HRR with. In this example I used the highest rate, but will discuss with the students how to determine the range of this percent. The other problem I had was defining the different heart rates. While I was in create stage I originally made it a flow chart starting from the top and working its way down left to right, first defining each type of heart rate then moving onto the equation to get to their Target Heart Rate.  This seemed way too complex, hard to follow as well as distracting with too many organizational cues (p 82).  So I decided to organize the different heart rates into a “key” before sharing the equation to get the target heart rate. For the final part I really had to make a conscious effort to “take out visual elements that do not add anything” (p 89). So, I do feel it is quite simple but fits the requirements.

·         Selection, Benefits of Aerobic Exercise, is also used to reinforce or remind the students why you should exercise. After reading through the benefits of exercise as well as explanations of how exercise affects the lungs and heart.  I tried to make the most important information, the actual benefits, stand out by making them slightly larger than the font and making the color of the font red.  I also condensed the benefits into a few words at the most hoping to keep it brief and concise. The actual image of the heart I faded out and made slightly smaller to serve as the “ground”; I am hoping that even though I centered the benefits around it, the “figure” of the image is still the list of benefits (102).

4.      Implementation

 I have actually already implemented many of these graphics in my online course this quarter. I like how I can place many of these images in front of the students to explain, reinforce, as well as model the content we discussed within the unit already. I now want to find the best way to “hand these out” or have them accessible to the students. I don’t know if an additional link within the home page of my online course would be good, or if the Doc Sharing folder would be a better place to store them for the use of my students. 

Lohr, L. L. (2008). Creating graphics for learning and performance, Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.