Service-learning programs provide students with opportunities to gain discipline-specific skills, while providing community organizations with a steady pool of volunteers. However, because students may lack the skills needed to effectively serve the community, skills-based training may need to be incorporated into service-learning courses. Students in a community nutrition service-learning course engaged in 7 weeks of training before teaching a 6-week-long nutrition education course to community members. The training included three layers of activities: (1) basic activities, which introduced the students to material necessary to build skills for their service-learning experience; (2) directed activities, which allowed them to refine a targeted skillset; (3) and collective activities, which allowed for the application of multiple skills. Through qualitative interviews with 12 of the 19 students who had been enrolled in the course, we determined the impact of a pre-service-learning training program on the development of the skills necessary to successfully teach a nutrition education course. Thematic analysis of the data revealed two major themes: (1) "layered learning" activities facilitate skill building and (2) a stressful, yet supportive, environment facilitates growth. Together, these aspects of course design allow students to develop skills and their self-efficacy in those skills. Therefore, instructors who plan to incorporate servicelearning into their nutrition courses may benefit from designing a pre-servicelearning training to improve student learning outcomes.
activity behavior changes of students in grades 2-5 participating in six YUM lessons as part of FNP education. This tool was used with YUM during the 2014-2015 school year. Students reported consuming vegetables, fruits, whole grain foods, and low-fat/fat-free dairy; choosing healthy snacks; eating breakfast; and doing physical activities more often after six YUM lessons compared to baseline (P<.00). Chi-square tests were used to determine change from baseline to post using SPSS. Conclusions and Implications: Participation in six lessons of the YUM curriculum improves the nutrition and physical activity behavior of elementary school students. As a practice-based curriculum, YUM is a good choice for direct education in elementary schools as part of SNAP-Education programming. More research is needed to increase the evidence to research-based.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.