MPH 601 Week 4 Unit of Instruction Design Example

Cooking the Family's Favorites With Less Sugar: A Three-Session Unit of Instruction Built on Practice, Peer Models and Teach-Back

[Student Name]

University of Phoenix

MPH/601: Public Health Promotion and Education

Week 4 Assignment

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The county program, sessions, peer leaders, recipes and timings are composites written for a model paper; research findings come from the sources cited.

During planning for the redesigned diabetes prevention program, a peer leader who had completed the original program described its nutrition session: forty minutes of slides on carbohydrates, followed by a handout. She said most participants were polite, took the handout and changed nothing. This paper designs a replacement: a three-session unit on healthy eating built on practice, peer models and checks for understanding.

Learners and Setting

Learners are adults with prediabetes on the county's east side, aged 30 to 70, many of them Spanish-speaking and about a third with limited health literacy. Sessions meet for 60 minutes at the community center, which has a teaching kitchen, on weekday evenings and Saturday mornings, with Spanish and English groups.

Theory Guiding the Unit

Social cognitive theory holds that self-efficacy, confidence that one can carry out a specific action, works together with goals, outcome expectations and environmental supports to shape whether people try to change, persist and recover from setbacks (Bandura, 2004). The unit builds self-efficacy through mastery experiences, practice that succeeds, and through modeling by peers who resemble the learners.

Where the Unit Fits

The unit comes in weeks five through seven of the 16-session program, after participants have set initial goals and started tracking activity. Placing it there lets it build on early confidence gains and gives participants time to try new recipes before the program's later sessions on stress, sleep and staying on track.

Unit Objectives

By the end of the unit, participants will correctly read added sugar and serving size on food labels using a picture guide, adapt a well-loved family recipe so it has less added sugar and fat, plan a week of family dinners within a set budget and set one personal eating goal for the following week.

Session One: Seeing Sugar and Portions

Objectives: identify the added sugar in five common foods and drinks and choose appropriate portions using hand-size guides. Opening, ten minutes: participants line up drink bottles by sugar content and then see the answer with sugar cubes stacked beside each bottle. Practice, 25 minutes: pairs read labels with a picture guide and sort foods into three groups. Portions, 15 minutes: learners portion rice and beans onto plates using hand guides. Close, ten minutes: teach-back and a personal goal.

Session Two: Cooking Family Favorites

Objectives: rework a familiar recipe so it carries less added sugar and fat, then cook it with a partner. A peer leader demonstrates making a family favorite, such as enchiladas or green chile stew, with less oil, leaner meat, more vegetables and no added sugar in the sauce. Groups then cook a version themselves, taste it and compare it with the traditional recipe. The session ends with participants writing, or drawing, one change they will try at home.

Session Three: Shopping and Planning on a Budget

Objectives: plan five family dinners within a set budget and identify three lower-cost healthy swaps. Participants use store flyers from local grocers to plan meals, compare costs of drinks and snacks and trade ideas. A price challenge asks teams to build a week of dinners for a family of five within a budget, then share their menus, which often reveals that beans, eggs, frozen vegetables and seasonal produce stretch money further than processed snacks. A community health worker shares information on food bank produce days and nutrition benefits.

Why Practice Instead of Lecture

Adults learn by doing, especially when learning must change daily habits. Each session limits presentation to about ten minutes and spends most time on hands-on activities, discussion and practice with real foods, labels and flyers.

Checking Understanding With Teach-Back

Every session ends with teach-back: each participant describes or demonstrates the change they plan to make at home. Evidence supports this. Researchers who audiotaped primary care visits at a public hospital found that doctors checked recall or comprehension for just 12% of the new ideas they introduced to diabetic patients with low literacy. When doctors did check, their patients' glucose control tended to be better, and the link held after adjustment for other factors (Schillinger et al., 2003). Asking learners to show what they will do is the step most teachers skip and the one that matters most.

Peer Leaders

Peers who have completed the program co-lead each session with a trained health educator. Evidence supports lay delivery: a meta-analysis of 28 real-world programs modeled on the Diabetes Prevention Program found weight loss similar whether the program was delivered by clinicians or lay educators, and weight loss increased with each additional session attended (Ali et al., 2012). Peers also make sessions feel welcoming, which supports attendance.

Handling Common Misunderstandings

The facilitators anticipate misunderstandings. Some participants believe fruit juice is always healthy, that sugar-free labels mean a food is safe in any amount or that tortillas must be eliminated. Each misunderstanding is addressed with a hands-on comparison rather than a correction, such as pouring the sugar equivalent of a glass of juice beside a whole orange.

Adapting for Literacy

Materials rely on pictures, color coding and real objects rather than text. Written materials use short sentences and are tested with learners. Numbers are shown as pictures, such as sugar cubes and hand portions, rather than grams.

Adapting for Language and Culture

Spanish-language groups are led by bilingual peers. Recipes come from participants' own kitchens. Discussion addresses family meals, celebrations and the pressure to serve large portions to guests.

Materials

Materials include drink bottles and sugar cubes, food models, a picture label guide, portion plates, teaching kitchen supplies, store flyers and a take-home recipe card with pictures.

Assessment of Learning

Facilitators observe label reading and recipe modification using a short checklist. Participants complete a picture-based check before session one and after session three. At the next session, participants report on their goals, and facilitators note progress.

Facilitator Guide

A facilitator guide provides minute-by-minute timing, scripts for key explanations in English and Spanish, teach-back questions, common misunderstandings and how to address them and safety guidance for the kitchen.

Unit Evaluation

After the first two cohorts, facilitators will review checklist results, attendance and participant comments. If fewer than 80% of participants can modify a recipe by the end of session two, the demonstration and practice time will be adjusted. Peer leaders will help revise materials that participants found confusing.

Accessibility and Logistics

Child care, a light meal from the session's cooking and reminders by text support attendance. Participants who miss a session receive a short video and a phone call from a peer.

Conclusion

The redesigned unit replaces forty minutes of slides with three hands-on sessions on labels and portions, cooking family favorites and shopping on a budget. Social cognitive theory guides the emphasis on mastery and peer modeling, evidence on checking understanding makes teach-back part of every session and evidence on lay educators supports peer leadership. Adaptations for literacy, language and culture keep the unit usable for the learners it serves.

References

Ali, M. K., Echouffo-Tcheugui, J. B., & Williamson, D. F. (2012). How effective were lifestyle interventions in real-world settings that were modeled on the Diabetes Prevention Program? Health Affairs, 31(1), 67-75. https://doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.2011.1009

Bandura, A. (2004). Health promotion by social cognitive means. Health Education & Behavior, 31(2), 143-164. https://doi.org/10.1177/1090198104263660

Schillinger, D., Piette, J., Grumbach, K., Wang, F., Wilson, C., Daher, C., Leong-Grotz, K., Castro, C., & Bindman, A. B. (2003). Closing the loop: Physician communication with diabetic patients who have low health literacy. Archives of Internal Medicine, 163(1), 83-90. https://doi.org/10.1001/archinte.163.1.83