Self-determination theory postulates that student motivation can be enhanced by supporting physical education students' basic needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Physical education teachers are in a unique position to motivate and help their students to achieve the best possible outcomes in physical education. First, this article…

Early adolescence is a time of great potential and vulnerability, especially for boys of color. Research is replete with examples of how mentoring can help young people through this challenging period, but less is known about what students themselves want from such relationships. Tina Durand interviewed and conducted focus groups with boys of…

Physical educators face many daily challenges in their work. Delivering culturally responsive programming that speaks to all students regardless of race, religion, nationality, gender, and motor abilities (Kozub & Hodge, 2014) is one of these challenges. Teachers who build a meaningful physical educational environment with skilled activities…

Autonomy-supportive teaching is the adoption of a student-focused attitude and an understanding interpersonal tone that enables the skillful enactment of seven autonomy-satisfying instructional behaviors to serve two purposes--support intrinsic motivation and support internalization. Using self-determination theory principles and empirical…

Myllykangas postulated that students studying various careers within the parks and recreation profession might prefer a certain learning style, which is, often the case, different from the teaching style used by the faculty. In order to address learning styles of students, it is essential to be able to adapt to the learning styles of each student…

The diversity of skills, talents, and interests of students that we serve in our schools requires a remarkable range of teachers' skills, time, and resources. This brief article focuses on differentiation and the ways that teachers can adapt and differentiate the regular curriculum to meet the academic needs of all of their students. Challenges…

It is no secret that the student attending university classes today is different from the learner of several years ago (Blakefield, 2013). Educators have been recently encouraged to shift the paradigm of traditional lecture-style education to incorporate service-learning and experiential activities involving media and technology whenever possible…

The purpose of this article is to offer reflections regarding teaching undergraduate students spanning a forty-five year career in higher education. The author discusses his teaching philosophy coupled with his perspective focusing on the "best" pedagogical practices that he has used to enhance student learning. The selected methods are…

Many physical educators have asked "how do I help my students become skilled?" Most would likely respond with one word, "practice." Teachers' belief systems tell them if students practice sufficiently the product of more skillful play will be attained. It's likely that students believe this too. They know that in order to play the game better,…

Numerous research studies confirm that the most important factor contributing to student success is the effectiveness of instruction. Though school quality is largely determined by teacher quality, that single factor is surprisingly difficult to improve. The well-chronicled and often-exaggerated reasons for this include veteran teachers resisting…

This chapter provides an overview and implementation guidelines of Just-in-Time Teaching (JiTT), an interactive engagement pedagogy used across disciplines and across the academy, now in its fourteenth year. The heart of JiTT pedagogy is Web-based pre-instruction assignments called warm-ups, with some colorful local variations, such as GeoBytes in…

South Africa's higher education policies have opened up access to university for students from diverse backgrounds, with different learning styles, levels of motivation and levels of preparedness. This has necessitated a move from the lecture style of teaching to innovative teaching styles that engage the learners and equip them with skills to…

In her well-known research, Carol Dweck has documented how individuals' attitudes about intelligence affect their behavior and achievement. People with a fixed mindset, she writes, believe that intelligence is inborn and unchangeable, whereas those with a growth mindset believe that intelligence can grow through practice and effort. In this…

Many teachers see major difficulties in maintaining academic standards in today's larger and more diversified classes. The problem becomes more tractable if learning outcomes are seen as more a function of students' activities than of their fixed characteristics. The teacher's job is then to organise the teaching/learning context so that all…

Faculty and administrators of higher education today face a challenge with their student populations, many of whom are part of what is known as the net generation. As students become more technologically advanced, faculty must be technologically ready to meet the needs of students. Many college faculty and administrators are from earlier…