Health Education

Degree: Bachelor of Science in Education


What is Health Education?

Through health education, you motivate people to develop a healthy lifestyle by enhancing what they know, feel, and are able to do about their health. Students pursuing a teacher licensure in health education specialize in child and adolescent health. Successful completion of the degree and licensure requirements will result in an Ohio Teaching Licensure in Health Education, pre-kindergarten through grade 12.


What are the features of Miami's program?

Top ranking: For nearly a century, Miami University has been offering programs to prepare teachers for the classroom. Today's preparation focuses on meeting the needs of contemporary schools, families, and communities. Our teacher education programs are widely recognized for their quality, and teacher education ranks among the top 10 programs at Miami for the number of majors.

Extensive classroom experience: Our teacher education program gives you more classroom experiences than most programs at other universities. Early in your second year, you get a feel for teaching by spending time in school classrooms. In methodology of teaching classes, you spend a quarter of the term in schools, working directly with teachers. And during the semester of student teaching, you are regularly visited by a Miami student-teaching supervisor for consultation and guidance.

Professional education sequence: Teaching requires such knowledge as the characteristics of learners, social structures of schools, families and communities, assessment techniques, classroom practices, law, statistics, electronic support systems, curriculum, and resources. In the professional education sequence, you investigate this knowledge and combine it with extensive experiences in a variety of schools. As you progress through the professional education sequence, you spend increasing time with experienced teachers in a variety of urban, suburban, and rural schools. Your experiences will range from helping individual students in the schools to being responsible for an entire classroom of students.


Are there special admission requirements?

To enter this major, students must enroll in the Department of Kinesiology and Health (KNH) to take KNH courses as pre-majors. Once enrolled as a health education pre-major, students are eligible to apply to the major after completing at least 24 credit hours of coursework (including three courses of program requirements) and achieving a g.p.a. of 2.5 or higher.


What courses would I take?

Coursework in this major includes health-related content, such as personal health, nutrition, physical activity, drug education, and sexuality education; educational theory in curriculum, instruction, and assessment; and pedagogy and technology. Practical field experiences and intern teaching occur during the program in urban, suburban, and rural schools.

While the health education program emphasizes how schools work to improve the health of children and youth, it is not just school-based; it also gives you an awareness of working with family, health, and social services agencies that serve children, youth, and their families.

This program also requires you to take classes within the Miami Plan for Liberal Education. Through the plan's foundation courses, you'll hone skills such as thinking critically, understanding contexts, reflecting and acting, and engaging with other learners. These courses are in the broad discipline areas of English composition, fine arts, humanities, social science, world cultures, natural science, formal reasoning, and in the social foundations of education.


What can I do with this major?

Because schools are linked to communities, health educators may be hired to do school/community coordinating work for children and youth before, during, and after school in collaboration with other health and education professionals. Some graduates have entered careers in community health organizations, work-site wellness programs, and/or clinical health promotion settings. This degree also serves as a foundation for graduate study at many universities.


Who can I contact for more information?

For general information about Miami University, please contact:

Office of Admission
301 S. Campus Ave.
Miami University
Oxford, OH 45056-3434
513-529-2531 (v/t)
www.muohio.edu/requestinfo

For specific information on the Health Education major, please contact:

Department of Kinesiology and Health
106 Phillips Hall
Miami University
Oxford, OH 45056
513-529-2700
www.muohio.edu/knh