How do you prepare public health students for the complex systems that school health inhabits?
What better way to understand a complex service environment than to go to the source, and talk to the people that operate within it? This is what we tasked our students with, through project-based learning.
As teaching assistant and then as course lead, I supervised students in field learning projects in which they worked with public schools to:
Design a research plan to collect qualitative data from parents and students at their designated school site. The purpose of this plan is to answer the question: What are the health and non-health related reasons students miss school?
Implement the research plan and collect data at their respective school sites.
Compile the data and present it in a way that makes sense for teachers and school administrators.
Provide a set of recommendations based on the findings for field practitioners (i.e. community school directors, non-profit staff, teachers, guidance counselors, administrators, etc.) addressing chronic absenteeism.