Think back to high school. What did you learn in sex ed class? What was your impression of your teacher? My teacher was the weightlifting coach named Mr. Gross and he seemed to lack all confidence in his ability to teach this content, opting instead to just show videos of childbirth. I paid very little attention. Students who do not see their sex ed teachers as confident or knowledgeable are less likely to learn from them. In Hattie’s 2009 work, Visible Learning: A Synthesis Of Over 800 Meta-Analyses Relating To Achievement, he asserts that what is key “is not whether teachers are excellent, or even seen to be excellent by colleagues, but whether they are excellent as seen by students. A most critical aspect contributed [to student learning] by the teacher is the quality of their teaching as perceived by the students.” Whether a teacher is an expert in the content or is confident in front of the classroom may not be as relevant as if the students see the teacher as an expert or confident.
SkillFlix® for Sex Educators shown to improve student perception of sex educators’ knowledge and comfort teaching
SkillFlix® for Sex Educators is an online training platform that is shown to improve students’ perception of their teachers and to increase student knowledge of sex education content. In a randomized controlled trial, students whose teacher used SkillFlix were more likely to say that their teachers were knowledgeable about the topics, were skilled educators, and seemed comfortable teaching topics like STIs and condom use. The students were more likely to report that they felt included in the class, engaged in learning and comfortable asking questions or discussing sexuality education topics in class.
Educators can benefit from professional development through SkillFlix for Sex Educators so that their students see them as confident and knowledgeable. My sex ed teacher, Mr. Gross didn’t have the confidence to teach us sex ed. I sure wish he would have had access to Skillflix for Sex Educators to better equip me and my classmates.
What tools have you used to improve your students’ perception of your confidence and knowledge?
Hattie, John. (2009). Visible Learning: A Synthesis of Over 800 Meta-Analyses Relating to Achievement. 10.4324/9780203887332.