Welcome back to my second week of working as an intern at the CUCE-NYC CHAT Initiative! This Monday and Tuesday, the CCE educators Mengxue and Selma finished demonstrating the last two CHFFF lessons on eating healthier fast foods and breakfasts, where we respectively made Tortilla Roll Ups and Breakfast Parfaits. Then, we remained busy for the rest of the week. On Wednesday, Eda and I prepared and executed a “teachback” of lessons 1 (healthy drinks) and 2 (fruits and vegetables), where we essentially modeled what we learned during demonstrations to teach a class of CCE educators pretending to be elementary schoolers. It was daunting initially, but we were able to maintain our energy, speak clearly, create a cohesive flow, and add our own twists within the classroom, which really impressed the educators! 

Afterwards, on Thursday morning, we met the PAL site group leaders and directors for the first time, and successfully demonstrated lesson 1 to them through Zoom! In the afternoon, we did a teachback of lessons 3 (nutrition facts label) and 4 (whole grains) to a couple other CCE educators, along with Miriam’s supervisor Dr. Jackie Davis. Similarly on Friday, we demonstrated lesson 2 to the PAL group leaders and did a teach back of lessons 5 and 6. Throughout these sessions, we debriefed on what we as educators could add to make our classes more engaging for the youths. For instance, we suggested having students volunteer as taste testers (which could also help us improve our recipes) and allowing them to put up cute reaction signs during our activities. Additionally, we debriefed on how to handle moments of conflict; if a youth is picky with their food, us educators would encourage them to try little bites while remaining calm and respectful to their choices. Overall, I look forward to demonstrating the rest of the lessons to the group leaders!