Educating Students for a Lifetime of Physical Activity: Enhancing Mindfulness,Motivation, and Meaning

For many years, pedagogical scholars and physical education (PE) teachers have worked to enhance effective teaching and learning environments. Yet for some children, youth, and young adults, many of the benefits associated with a physically active lifestyle remain elusive. Enhancing programming and performance to meet physical activity goals may require moving programs beyond “effective.” It will require teachers and program leaders to focus programmatic attention on strategies to actually increase students’ out-of-class physical activity behavior. Transformative PE provides physical activity content within a nurturing and motivating environment that can change students’ lives. It focuses on PE students’ role in cognitive decision making, self-motivation, and their search for personal meaning that can add connection and relevance to physical activities. In this SHAPE America – Society of Health and Physical Educators Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport Lecture, I have synthesized the research on these topics to emphasize useful findings applicable to teachers’ everyday planning and teaching. Using sport, physical activity, dance, and adventure activities as the means to an end for personal and social growth, we can meet our commitment to effective standards-based education while preparing students for a lifetime of physical activity.     

Brief Counseling for Problematic Drinking: A University Counseling Center's Model

This article describes the design of a brief counseling model for students presenting with alcohol use concerns at one state university counseling center.     

Access to Educational and Instructional Computer Technologies for Post‐secondary Students with Disabilities: lessons from three empirical studies

Access issues based on three Canadian empirical studies of the use of computer and information technologies by college and university students with physical, sensory, and learning disabilities are presented. Data were obtained between fall 1997 and spring 1999 from: (1) focus groups with students with disabilities (n = 12); (2) structured interviews with students with disabilities (a = 37) and with post‐secondary personnel responsible for providing services to them (n = 30); (3) questionnaires completed by post‐secondary students with disabilities (n= 725). Findings indicate that the overwhelming majority of students with disabilities use computers and the Internet, but that 41 % of them need some type of adaptation to use computers effectively. Key findings emphasize advantages of computer technologies and delineate barriers to full access. Types of computer, information and adaptive technologies used by students with different disabilities are presented and emerging trends are highlighted. The goal is (1) to sensitize educational and instructional technologists, professors and planners involved in the implementation of educational media into post‐secondary education curricula and (2) to demonstrate that designing for accessibility from the outset creates a more equitable learning environment that provides opportunities for all students     

Reviews

Books reviewed:

Red Rose Chain/Alpha Films, Four Carrier Bags and a Buggy

Alison Closs, The Education of Children with Medical Conditions

Ralph L. Klicker, A Student Dies, A School Mourns     

Parents' experiences of applied behaviour analysis (ABA)‐based interventions for children diagnosed with autistic spectrum disorder

Applied behaviour analysis (ABA)‐based programmes are endorsed as the gold standard for treatment of children with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) in most of North America. This is not the case in most of Europe, where instead a non‐specified ‘eclectic’ approach is adopted. We explored the social validity of ABA‐based interventions with 15 European families who had experience with home‐based, mainly self‐managed, ABA‐based programmes for their own child/ren with ASD. The results of the study highlighted the overwhelmingly positive impact that ABA‐based interventions had on their children in areas such as social skills, challenging behaviour, communication, gross and fine motor skills, concentration, interaction, independence, overall quality of life and, most importantly, a feeling of hope for the future. Implications for European policy on ASD are discussed.     

Virtual Reality: A Strategy for Training in Cross‐Cultural Communication

Abstract

This paper provides a background and the current developments of the new and innovative technology known as virtual reality (VR). It is intended as an introduction and will explain common terms, theoretical concepts and enabling technologies. The authors describe some current research and applications of virtual environmental technology, and discuss the limitations of the state of the art of the technology. The authors also present ideas for future applications of virtual environment technology with particular emphasis on the use of VR to enhance intercultural training.     

Commemorating a whole story of woman suffrage

ABSTRACT

To tell the whole story of the struggle for woman suffrage, we need to begin the story well before 1848 and continue it long after 1920. For those teaching about woman suffrage, this essay offers resources that enable you to situate the 19th Amendment within a richer narrative of woman suffrage.