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Adapted physical education (APE) is offered as a course in most physical education teacher education (PETE) programs to better prepare preservice teachers (PST) in giving instruction to students with disabilities. As a growing pedagogical approach, service-learning (SL) continues to be integrated into the APE course, as a supplement to PSTs’ learning. Traditionally, SL activities focus on changing one’s own actions, attitudes or beliefs rather than challenging social problems that may exist in physical education for students with disabilities (e.g., power, privilege, social equality). Preservice teachers should be given an opportunity to develop the knowledge and skills necessary to teach students with disabilities from multiple dimensions (e.g., classroom, school, society). Likewise, they should also be prepared to become active agents in creating unbiased programs for students with disabilities. Therefore, this article introduces the concept of a critical service-learning approach as an effective pedagogy within an introductory APE course. Specifically, it is a method that focuses on a social-justice orientation which can be utilized to empower PSTs beyond the PETE setting.

This article seeks to give practical examples of how teachers can promote the development of students’ affective learning using two cooperative learning structures: Student teams assessment divisions (STAD) and jigsaw classroom. It also includes a taxonomy aimed to help teachers value and assess their students’ affective learning. The article concludes by suggesting that if physical education is serious in its commitment to help all students learn across the different learning domains (i.e., physical, cognitive, social and affective), teachers need to be more selective in their choices of pedagogical approaches. In short, they must select those approaches capable of developing learning in the affective domain (e.g. cooperative learning and structures like STAD and jigsaw).

Assessment is the foundation of providing appropriate services and developing effective lesson plans for physical education. If assessment results do not truly represent a child’s ability level, the physical education experience for that student may be less meaningful. This can be a concern for students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) who may not understand or have an interest in the rigid structure of standardized motor assessments. Recent research has focused on improving communication during gross motor-skill assessment to improve skill performance among children with ASD. In order to further increase the accuracy of movement skill assessments for students with ASD, however, it is important that teachers and professionals also address a student’s motivation to participate. If the student with ASD is motivated to participate in the assessment, the student will be more interested in and perform the skill better. The purpose of this article is to provide strategies to increase motivation during gross motor-skill assessments in order to improve accuracy and knowledge of the student’s movement capabilities. Strategies for how physical educators can increase motivation will be presented, including getting to know the student, making the assessment fun, and providing choices.

Healthy 2B Me aims to educate and empower underserved children ages seven to 11 years old to improve their health and well-being through a supportive, educational and entertaining public health–themed summer day camp. Qualitative data collected through camper exit slips, final posters/presentations, and parent surveys were analyzed to identify salient themes demonstrating the impact of camp participation on children’s health. Both camper and parent responses suggested improvements in participant knowledge, attitude and behavior in relation to diet, physical activity, sun safety, hand washing, smoking, and kindness. This article describes how the Healthy 2B Me camp contributes to our understanding of how to design and assess a health-themed, positive youth-development summer camp for underserved children.

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