The Teaching of Wellness – PRIME Instructional Strategies and Activities #7

Student Generated Wellness Strategies – We put in a lot of time and effort to grow agency in our students when we design student-centered learning activities. Our approaches to project-based and inquiry learning are just two of our instructional constructs that support student empowerment and buy-in with their learning.

Working as learning partners with our students offers us the opportunity to engage them as co-designers of how they “live it” when it comes to wellness. Many of the PRIME instructional strategies presented here so far incorporate student input and of course lots of follow through. In walking around the elementary school I found many examples of students offering their ideas and strategies that are now visible for others to view and learn from. This making their thinking visible connects well to the strategy of student generated activities to further support their learning about wellness.

This two for one approach becomes a triple winner when you incorporate thinking about the branding opportunity offered when we weave the language of PERMAH and the Character Strengths into our class cultures. The teachers in the elementary division naturally cover these three strategies through posters, bulletin boards, lesson slides, etc.

Here are a few triple winner samples that can be adapted for wellness learning.