Helping students prevent pregnancy is an important, but often overlooked, part of the completion agenda. In fact, 61% of women who have children after enrolling in community college fail to finish their degree, which is 65% higher than the rate for those who didn’t have children.
You may think, “By the time they arrive at college, students already know everything about how to prevent pregnancy.” Indeed, most students themselves think they have all the information they need as well. However, research shows that myths, misinformation, and magical thinking are all too common among young adults when it comes to preventing unplanned pregnancy.
The three lessons in Preventing Unplanned Pregnancy and Completing College can help students address information gaps and take action to prevent unplanned pregnancy. The lessons are designed to help students understand the impact of unplanned pregnancy on their educational goals, their social lives, their significant relationships, and their finances.
In the online lessons, students
1. learn about various birth control methods; 2. select the most appropriate method(s) for their values, lifestyles, and relationships; and 3. create an action plan to decrease their chances of unplanned pregnancy.
Lesson One: Why Should You Care About Preventing Unplanned Pregnancy? Lesson One helps you consider the effects of unplanned pregnancy on your educational and life goals.
Lesson Two: How Much Do You Know About Sex and Birth Control? Lesson Two addresses some of the myths, magical thinking, and gaps in knowledge that put you in danger of unplanned pregnancy.
Lesson Three: Make a Plan and Take Action Lesson Three helps you select a birth control method, find out where to get it, learn strategies for discussing sex and birth control with your partner(s) and healthcare provider, and make an action plan to prevent unplanned pregnancy.
How to Use the Lessons
All three lessons are free, interactive, and fully online.
By offering the lessons, instructors can provide students with valuable information, without needing to become experts on these topics themselves or using class time. Students can complete the lessons online. Each of the three lessons may be completed in 30-40 minutes.
The lessons include the following helpful features:
1. Study guides for each lesson to help focus student attention on the relevant points. 2. Scored quizzes at the end of each lesson that students can submit to instructors for a grade. 3. An Action Plan to help students get organized and to follow through on their plans to prevent unplanned pregnancy.
Supplementary Materials
Faculty Guide -- The Faculty Guide details the contents of the lessons, offers suggestions and other ideas for how to incorporate these lessons into your course, and more.
Student Guide -- The Student Guide Handout is in Rich Text Format so you can modify it to suit your lesson assignment.
Student Study Guides and Action Plan―These resources are available for you and students to download within the lessons, but you may wish to provide them for students ahead of time.
Resource List―A list of the resources is also available for students to download within the lessons at the end of Lesson Three.
