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Public Law 94-142, The Education for All Handicapped Children Act, (now The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) requires all children with disabilities to be educated in the least restrictive environment (LRE). The LRE requirement means that students with disabilities, to the maximum extent possible, should be educated in the general educational environment with their typically developing peers. The core content area of physical education is no exception. This article shares the benefits of implementing the “modified” placement as a viable option for LRE when providing adapted physical education for some children with disabilities.

This article describes ROCKETS, an after-school program for at-risk youth, and how the university students became involved in this service-learning project. The article discusses the steps that were taken to start the program, what is being done to continue the program, and the challenges that faculty have faced. This program is an authentic opportunity for university students to practice their teaching skills and implement forms of positive discipline through relationship building. The greatest value of this program is in the development of positive relationships between the ROCKETS children and the mentors, and between the university and community.

Service-learning courses provide students with practical opportunities to enhance their learning and development in the field, along with getting students engaged in different communities and settings. However, there are still many challenges to designing and offering effective service-learning courses, such as requiring all students to participate in the service-learning component and creating a larger workload for teachers. The purpose of this article is to provide a detailed description of a service-learning course in the sport-based youth development field that addresses these concerns. By partnering with a community-based organization, students enrolled in this service-learning course were able to participate in two ways: (1) serving as a student leader in the 10-week program or (2) serving as a formative evaluator by watching the videotaped sessions each week and providing constructive feedback to their peers. Through an independent study option, some students could also serve as summative evaluators of the program. This article describes the service-learning course and sport-based youth development program are introduced, with in-depth reflections from three graduate students detailing their experiences serving in different roles. The article also provides practical implications for teachers and practitioners, serving as one example of a successful service-learning course that maximizes student engagement, learning, and development.

This article presents a very brief history of recreational and competitive darts, present relevant neurological systems pertinent to throwing darts, discusses dart equipment, and talks about techniques of throwing darts as a recreational and competitive sport. In particular, the performance aspect of darts for individuals with visual impairment or blindness are examined in depth.

Differentiated instruction (DI) is a complex conceptual model and philosophy that is implemented in many traditional classroom settings. The primary focus of DI is to personalize the learning process by taking into account individual differences among students’ varied levels of readiness, interest and learning profile. Varied assessments are used to gain a deeper understanding of student readiness, while certain teaching strategies are used to capitalize on student interest. Student learning profiles are developed as teachers gain an understanding of individual learning styles, intelligence preferences, gender and culture. Each of these individual differences can have a profound effect on the way students learn and are important considerations for teachers. To date, the application of DI in physical education has been limited and has primarily been considered in its application to adapted physical education. The purpose of this article is to provide physical education teachers with an overview of DI and practical methods to incorporate traditional best teaching practices to differentiate instruction for diverse learners.

Sideline shouting to “focus” and “anticipate” can be stressful and counterproductive for athletes, especially when they are novices playing in dynamic sport enviornments. An alternative aproach is to coach athletes to understand that focusing is a concentration skill that improves with practice. Selective attention, attentional focus style, and attentional shifting are three keys to concentration that have important implications for motor performance and decision making during open-skill sports. In this article, these characteristics are described and associated with practical activities to improve athletes’ concentration skills.

A physical education teacher who required a student non-swimmer to spend most of a class period in a school pool was immune from liability after the student ingested water into his lungs and died.

Our goal as teachers should not just be to give our students a bag of tools that they may or may not use. Our goal should be to enable them to actually want to use those tools. This article explores the importance of autonomy-supportive teaching.

In this article, the authors propose that it is time to begin the process of creating and launching advanced placement classes in schools that are focused on physical education.