HECAT: A Guide for Health Education Teacher Preparation Programs in Institutions of Higher Education

CDC developed a pre-service training guide, Health Education Curriculum Analysis Tool: A Guide for Health Education Teacher Preparation Programs in Institutions of Higher Education, to help future health education teachers understand how they can improve health instruction and curriculum selection using the Health Education Curriculum Analysis Tool (HECAT).

The guide and accompanying presentation materials are designed for use by college and university instructors in health and physical education professional teacher preparation programs. The lessons can be used for upper-division undergraduate, pre-service courses that focus on health education curricula and instruction, as well as for graduate-level health education courses.

Lessons 1 – 5 introduce the knowledge and skills prerequisite for analyzing a written single or multiple grade-level health education curricula, and then using those skills and the HECAT tools to analyze a curriculum. Lesson 6 helps apply the elements of the HECAT to help students develop their own health education unit plans for use in the classroom.