May 01 2012
Searching for Course Content
Teaching a course which focuses on promoting health and wellness I found the search tools very helpful, especially the NPR link. This was a great resource for audio and text materials. One of the topics my course focuses on is the idea of energy balance for weight management. I was able to find a lot of recent NPR stories from a variety of different programs which related to this topic. One thing that was really appealing to this was that the stories covered a variety of populations (young, old, different cultures and ethnicity). One challenge I have had in the past with online course instruction is that there is more diversity in the background of the students enrolled in my course. Although health and wellness impacts us all, often it can be a challenge to provide relevant information all the time to everyone. Using NPR is way that I may be able to increase the relatability of the course content to a broader population. It’s at least worth a try!
That’s a wonderful find — with the added bonus that by using stories from NPR students can choose to either read or listen to those articles. This can certainly give an added dimension to your course.