PATHS

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Pathways for Authentic Teaching of Health Sciences (PATHS) is a five year project designed to build health literacy knowledge and skills supported by a culturally responsive lens. PATHS will provide teachers and students in historically underserved rural and urban Virgnia communities with career awareness for the various educational trajectories and opportunities provided by health professions (Medical Lab Sciences, PT and OT, Radiation Science, and Dental Hygiene). PATHS will engage 60 secondary teachers (grades 7 through 12) over four years in a model program that provides curriculum and pedagogical support (professional development) guided by culturally responsive practices. Our aim is to support teachers and ultimately students in learning about the skills and content of health professions, the impact of social determinants of health (SDH), and to develop their ability to work with large data sets through medical tools related to precision health. The curriculum tools will be web-based modularized units to address five areas of health professions, SDH, and precision health and will provide content-rich and inquiry-based exposure to careers and skills necessary for health professions that are applicable to science, health/physical education, and career and technology education classrooms. Teachers will participate in two summer institutes with support during school-year follow-up sessions and virtual coaching. The project team along with the Virginia Area Health Education Centers (AHEC) will support teachers and their students with sharing their learning at Community Health Fairs, STEM Fairs, and other student research conferences. PATHS will include both formative and summative evaluation. The formative evaluation will use a treatment-group-only approach to gauge the development and implementation of the summer institute and curricular tools. The summative evaluation will involve a quasi-experimental design to compare treatment and control teachers. Teachers will be matched using propensity score matching to increase the design rigor. Surveys and focus group interviews will be used to measure teacher and student learning and development of new skills. If the PATHS program is successful in accomplishing these aims and increasing awareness and understanding among students and teachers, we anticipate increased enrollment in programs in STEM-H and an improved understanding of health care issues.