An educator's teaching styles are essential to the increase in student learning. Mosston's Spectrum of Teaching Styles features 11 teaching styles ranging from a completely teacher-centered approach to a completely student-centered approach. These teaching styles are effective in addressing various student needs. Especially when multiple styles…

Dance is an essential cultural product often overlooked in curriculum and lesson design in favor of sports, literature, visual arts, music, and other products from the target language culture. Given the similarities between the national standards for dance and for learning languages, movement and dance activities merit a greater role in world…

Interpreting and enacting curriculum in any school is a complex undertaking, even more so in special school contexts where teachers must develop and enact appropriate curriculum modifications and accommodations for small groups of students and individual students. In special education contexts, educational modifications are changes teachers make…

Physical education teachers who are looking for creative activities that engage students and that meet national and state standards for learning, may find "Balls and Beats" as a perfect solution. "Balls and Beats", in a fun and dynamic atmosphere, covers all the basic needs for effective student learning based upon the the…

The intent of this article is to discuss how gradual water exposure, also known as systematic desensitization, coupled with the concept of mindfulness can serve as teaching strategies when working with students in the pool. These strategies have the potential to strengthen the mind/body connection for all students but particularly those who are…

Human dignity is a complex, though essential, concept for students to master. Inserting human dignity into existing curricula provides students with more opportunities to consider the problems of vulnerable classmates and the status of human dignity and rights in the United States and around the world. Using parts of the US modern Civil Rights…

Culture in the teaching and learning of foreign languages tends to be stereotypical and monolithic, marginalizing the diversity of local cultures and practices and resulting in a monocultural and monolingual bias. Expanding on the ACTFL Cultures and Comparisons Standards, the current article presents the MAPS model for Exploring Local Cultures…

This article describes a teaching strategy called the Fair Play Instruction (FPI). The purposes of which are to teach behaviors that can help a class to advance their social skills. The Fair Play Instruction strategy is an effective way to incorporate SHAPE America's standard 4, and to assess students' progress towards the achievement of this…

National Core Arts Standards require students to use feedback from peers to refine both their performances and their compositions in the artistic processes of Create and Perform. When asked to give feedback to a peer, many students stop at comments like "It sounds good," and do not naturally give specific, meaningful feedback. Therefore,…

Prop boxes are a collection of materials for sociodramatic play in which children act out authentic roles and scenes of the real world. Teachers collect materials around a topic or theme that connects to students' interests and addresses academic standards across multiple subjects. In this article, the authors suggest that prop boxes can make more…

The Competencies and sub-competencies of the Collaborative of Academic and Social Emotional Learning (CASEL) are very closely aligned to skills-based health education based on the National Health Education Standards and SHAPE America Grade Level Outcomes but miles apart when it comes to recognizability, perceived need, efficaciousness, and…

Cultivating students' scientific knowledge and developing their capability in scientific inquiry depends on a teacher's ability to use existing resources to design rich learning opportunities. Designing such experiences is not easy, and is particularly challenging for new teachers who have little experience making decisions about the best way to…

Effective health education can positively contribute to a student's school experience. Healthier students are more likely to be ready and able to learn, and students who are academically successful often engage in less risky behaviors. Health education programs can support students' skill development and knowledge acquisition in order to help them…

In the divergent discovery style of teaching the teacher designs problems that engage students in finding multiple solutions. The purpose of this article is to show how physical educators can use the divergent discovery style in the gymnasium. A brief description of this style and its connection to the SHAPE America National Standards for K-12…

The inclusion of engineering in the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) as a key component of K-12 science learning has provided both opportunities and challenges for elementary teachers. One challenge is integrating the design thinking processes that undergird engineering with core science concepts and current issues facing scientists and…