Madison is an active, 10-year-old fourth-grade student who arrives at Northwood Elementary School each day with a smile on her face. She has cerebral palsy, which requires her to use a walker for mobility. Madison participates in general physical education three times per week with Mrs. Martin, a general physical education teacher (there is no adapted physical education specialist in this school district). Madison and all of the other students at Northwood love physical education because of the way Mrs. Martin runs her program. What makes Mrs. Martin’s physical education program so special?

First, Madison and the other students know ahead of time what they will be doing in physical education each day and how each day’s activities fit into Mrs. Martin’s units or “themes.” Some themes revolve around learning one specific skill such as throwing overhand or jumping rope; other themes revolve around learning multiple skills and concepts that relate to a specific topic such as dancing, gymnastics, physical fitness, or a sport. Each theme lasts for about 2-4 weeks, depending on the number of skills within that theme and the skill level of the students. Themes that are particularly important (e.g., physical fitness) or themes that have skills that are difficult to master (e.g., overhand throw) are often revisited throughout the year. In addition to practicing specific skills during physical education, students are encouraged to practice skills within a theme at home. Using themes allows Mrs. Martin to help her students focus on specific skills for a concentrated amount of time.

Second, regardless of the particular theme, Mrs. Martin makes sure each student knows on which skills or parts of skills to work and how to work on them. Rather than hold all students to the same standard, however, Mrs. Martin makes sure each student has individualized goals within each skill or concept that he or she can work toward based on his or her abilities. For example, during a recent throwing unit, some students worked on following through; some worked on fully extending their arm back; and others, who already had mastered the specific components of the throw, worked on throwing for distance and accuracy. Madison worked on throwing while standing in her walker using a special throwing pattern that she and Mrs. Martin devised just for Madison. Furthermore, Mrs. Martin always provides lots of choices of activities for the students to practice and equipment for them to use to reinforce their skills. For example, during a throwing unit, Mrs. Martin offered activity choices that included throwing at a parachute, throwing over a large cardboard box, throwing into a curtain, and throwing against the wall. In addition, students were allowed to choose what types of objects they wanted to throw (e.g., paper balls, yarn balls, koosh balls, bean bags) as well as how far away they would stand from the target at each station. This way, each student had a chance to be successful and challenged at his or her own level. (Madison prefers the bean bags because she is better able to grip them.)

Third, Mrs. Martin finds a way to make sure all the students always are active and engaged in fun activities. Students never have to stand around and wait for their turn. Each student has his or her own piece of equipment (unless he or she is involved in partner or group work), and the gymnasium is set up so that there is a lot of space for all of the students to participate at the same time in a safe manner. Also, Mrs. Martin tries to have the students play many games that reinforce a particular skill theme. However, she never plays traditional sports following regulation rules (e.g., softball, volleyball) because they often exclude many students, leaving them standing around without turns. She also does not play elimination games in which students have to sit out for extended periods of time. For example, during a basketball unit, Mrs. Martin had the students play tag games while dribbling a basketball, keep-away games to reinforce passing and catching, and a two-person relay race in which the students threw a ball toward a target on the wall to reinforce shooting. Madison’s classmates often tag her during the dribble tag games; however, all she has to do is reach down and touch her toes three times to get back into the game. She never has to sit out.

Fourth, Mrs. Martin uses a variety of teaching styles to keep the students interested, to encourage active learning and cognitive development, and to promote interaction with peers and teamwork. For example, during a fitness theme, Mrs. Martin had the students do cooperative push-ups. Students were placed into groups of fives and were told to determine how many push-ups they could do as a team. Some students did modified push-ups, whereas other students did regular push-ups. (Madison is very strong in her upper body, so she did regular push-ups!) Then, the total for the group was added. Each day during the unit, the cooperative teams tried to beat their total number of push-ups from the previous day. During a typical unit, Mrs. Martin often uses cooperative learning as well as other unique teaching styles such as reciprocal teaching (i.e., peer tutoring), student designed activities, task sheets, and guided discovery.