Easy as PIE: A Recipe for Approaching the Areas of Responsibility and Competencies for Health Education Specialists

Abstract

Experiential learning to address the Areas of Responsibility and Competencies for health education specialists is scarce or limited in scope in the pedagogy literature. The purpose of this article is to describe the process in which faculty applied a unique experiential learning approach wherein students were involved in planning, implementing, and evaluating (PIE) a health promotion program over the course of an academic year. The PIE approach allowed faculty to modify and revise course objectives to better align outcomes with the Areas of Responsibility and Competencies for health education specialists. This article provides an overview of the past 4 years using the PIE approach, a synopsis of the various steps faculty employed to use this model, and student perception of the approach as a learning tool.