We know how difficult it can be to engage students while presenting your Prevention Plus Wellness (PPW) program lesson, especially to groups of adolescents who may have cell phones, ear buds, or who are tired or hungry.
Below are some suggestions to increase the likelihood your audience will receive your critical, motivational and potentially life-changing PPW intervention.
Experiment with the Program Scripts
Each PPW program script includes engaging and thought provoking activities, including completing a screening survey, answering discussion or “Stop and Think” questions during the feedback portion of the lesson, and completing a personal goal plan to initiate multi-behavior change.
Each of these activities will engage youth and keep them actively focused on the lesson.
You may also wish to experiment with these three strategies to ensure maximum student attention, interest and participation.
For example, have multiple youth respond to each of the discussion questions or have everyone share their goal plans to receive positive suggestions from other students regarding how to set measurable and attainable goals.
You can also use the individual script to present your PPW lesson to youth one-on-one by dismissing one student at a time from a designated classroom, or perhaps create small groups of youth to help increase their attention and opportunities to participate during the lesson.
Provide Incentives
Youth may be more motivated to listen to and participate in your PPW lesson if you provide them with an incentive.
One idea is to offer them popular youth candy, snack bags, protein drinks or bars or other youth popular treats for listening and participating in your lesson.
While PPW programs promote healthy nutrition, teachers can use some of these less-than-ideal health foods to highlight the critical importance of regular healthy breakfast and fruit and vegetable consumption and that a treat every now and then is acceptable in one’s overall diet
Another idea is to provide a drawing for one or even a few small prizes, with attention and/or participation being the eligibility requirement for participation in the drawing. Drawings can be held throughout or at the end of the lesson to enhance attention.
Offering 10-15 minutes of free time at the end of the lesson for students to do what they wish, such as use their smart phones or listen to music on their ear buds, is another idea to enhance motivation. This incentive might also increase class interest in moving the lesson along in a timely manner to allow students end-of-lesson free time.
Lastly, it might be a good idea to ask students themselves what ideas they have for incentives that would motivate them to focus, pay attention and actively participate during a PPW lesson.
Use the PPW Healthy Lifestyles Booklet & Stickers
We’ve created a student Healthy Lifestyles Workbook which includes a wealth of interactive and fun learning activities targeting each of the health habits addressed in PPW lessons which can be used to reinforce lesson messages and enhance motivation during your PPW lesson.
Use the Workbook activities immediately after you complete your PPW lesson, or to extend your program over additional sessions.
In addition, use the fun and funky retro PPW Healthy Behavior Scratch n’ Sniff Stickers not only to promote the healthy habits of physical activity, nutrition, sleep and stress control, but also as an incentive or reward for students who listen to or respond during the lesson.
Use Your Program Evaluation Tools
Use your PPW program evaluation tools to measure how your program experimentations work for you and your students.
Don’t forget to request online pretest and posttest student surveys and the Instructor Survey to assess and monitor your program’s outcomes and implementation quality.
These tools will provide you and your organization with invaluable data from which to determine the success of your PPW program and provide critical information for promoting and enhancing it over time.
To schedule a brief Zoom call to discuss solutions to PPW program implementation in your setting, contact us at: info@preventionpluswellness.com or call us at: (904) 472-5022.