- Standard 5: Students demonstrate effective decision-making skills to enhance health.
Description
Decision making is an essential life skill critical for helping students establish, manage, and maintain healthy and safe behaviors. Decision making is the ability to select between two or more alternatives to reach the best outcome in a specified time frame.
Effective health decision making demonstrates someone who is health literate. Decision making requires the use of accurate and reliable information while progressing through a set of steps intended to help students take deliberate actions to enhance health.
These steps include: identify when a decision is needed; identify what information is needed to inform a decision to improve health; determine if help is needed to make the decision; generate options and predict their outcomes; choose a decision that aligns with personal values and beliefs; act on the decision; and reflect on the healthy and unhealthy consequences of the decision.
Decision making is nonlinear and complex, and students may apply steps out of order, or even repeat steps many times, based on the context and health situation they encounter.
Teachers foster students’ confidence, self-efficacy, and skill competence in effective decision making when they:
- Discuss the importance and relevance of decision-making skills that support healthy behaviors and well-being.
- Explain that students have the capability of learning decision-making skills that support healthy behaviors.
- Present steps for decision-making skills that support healthy behaviors.
- Model decision-making skills that support healthy behaviors.
- Use real-life scenarios for practicing decision-making skills that support healthy behaviors.
- Allow time and opportunity for students to practice decision-making skills.
- Provide performance-based feedback and reinforcement for decision-making skills.
5.2.1 Identify situations that need a health decision.
5.2.2 Determine when help is needed and when it is not needed to make a health decision.
5.2.3 Explain how family, peers, and trusted adults can affect a health decision.
5.2.4 Predict the outcome of a health decision that leads to a healthy behavior.
5.2.5 Choose a health-promoting option when making an effective decision.
5.2.6 Reflect on healthy and unhealthy consequences of a decision.
5.5.1 Identify procedural steps in decision making.
5.5.2 Assess when help is needed and when it is not needed to make a health decision.
5.5.3 Explain how family, peers, trusted adults, and media can affect a health decision.
5.5.4 Identify options when making a health-related decision.
5.5.5 Predict the potential consequences of each option.
5.5.6 Choose a health-promoting option that aligns with personal values when making an effective decision.
5.5.7 Reflect on the outcomes of an effective health decision.
5.8.1 Examine situations when the procedural steps of decision making are needed.
5.8.2 Distinguish when health decisions should be made individually or with the help of others.
5.8.3 Explain how family, peers, culture, media, technology, and other factors can affect a health decision.
5.8.4 Analyze how personal beliefs can affect decisions about a health behavior.
5.8.5 Discuss alternatives when making health decisions.
5.8.6 Distinguish between healthy and unhealthy consequences for each alternative.
5.8.7 Choose a health-promoting option when making an effective decision.
5.8.8 Analyze the outcomes of an effective health decision.
5.12.1 Analyze situations when the procedural steps of decision making are needed.
5.12.2 Discuss the consequences of being indecisive when making a health decision.
5.12.3 Justify when individual or collaborative decision making is appropriate.
5.12.4 Summarize people, organizations, and resources in the community when making a health decision.
5.12.5 Analyze how family, peers, culture, media, technology, and other factors influence personal beliefs when making a health decision.
5.12.6 Generate alternatives to risky behaviors or stressful situations when making a health decision for self or others.
5.12.7 Predict potential healthy and unhealthy consequences for each alternative.
5.12.8 Choose a health-promoting option when making an effective decision.
5.12.9 Evaluate the consequences of an effective health decision.
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