Years ago, as a new health education supervisor in a Maryland school district, I was tasked with creating standardized health education assessments for our middle school and high school HE courses.
This involved working with a group of six health educators to first decide what we wanted to assess students on by the time they left our classes. We then cross-referenced health education standards, local curriculum documents, and previous school-by-school tests.
Once that was done, the group spent nearly an entire week creating the four health education assessments we would pilot the next year.
During this pilot period, we had to go back and reference the topics addressed by each question and predict the difficulty of each question as it was answered by 1,000 students across the county.
It was a lot of time spent on the “grunt work” of resource development.
What we wished for at that time? A bank of health education assessment items — ideally in various answer formats — that would allow us to balance the skills being taught and give us multiple questions to assess the same content.
In short, we wanted to produce health education assessments quickly and easily — in multiple formats — for all our classes so we had more time to focus on preparing and teaching the lessons that led to the assessment.
For all these reasons and more, I’m beyond thrilled that SHAPE America members now have access to a new dynamic assessment resource for health education.
Simplifying Health Education Assessments
SHAPE America’s new Health Education Assessment Tool (HEAT) is a platform that contains an assessment bank of more than 800 test items — all reviewed and ready to use in your classroom immediately!
The assessments include different item types such as multiple choice, short answer and extended response questions, which are all sortable by health skill, grade level, topic area and more!
The tool makes it easy for health educators to create quizzes, tests and games throughout the school year, with the goal of helping students achieve health literacy. All items are compatible with the National Health Education Standards.
The Evolution of HEAT
SHAPE America’s Health Assessment Tool is the result of more than four years of revision and review by health educators across the country, using the original HEAP assessment item bank as a starting point.
The new HEAT platform is extremely flexible and designed to meet the ever-changing needs of health educators. New assessments will be added to this “living” tool as they are vetted.
In fact, we’re excited to announce that the reviews for the next set of test items have already begun, and we are always looking for more items to add to the assessment bank.
New Member Benefit
The Health Education Assessment Tool is a brand-new benefit for SHAPE America members. Test banks like HEAT sometimes cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars and we are thrilled to offer this to our members as a valuable teaching tool.
If you are not currently a SHAPE America member, I encourage you to join now to take advantage of this must-have health education resource!
As you try the Health Education Assessment Tool, we welcome all feedback at heatsupport@shapeamerica.org.
Additional Resources
- The Essentials of Teaching Health Education
- Appropriate Practices in School-Based Health Education
- Health Education Curriculum Builder
Christopher Hersl
Christopher Hersl is vice president of Programs & Professional Development at SHAPE America. Reach him through Twitter @SHAPEvpPPD or email at chersl@shapeamerica.org.
