Due in part to the recent Black Lives Matters (BLM) Movement highlighting inequalities within our healthcare, education, and criminal justice systems, we dedicated to devote an episode to discuss this movement and social justice. For this podcast had on two scholars with expertise in social justice in the fields of physical education and adapted physical education to discuss topics related to BLM and social justice. More specifically, we discuss the role of race within physical education, how disability and race intersects, critical race pedagogy, and how continue this discussion moving forward. In addition, Clark's (2020) recent paper entitled "Toward a critical race pedagogy of physical education" was used to guide this conversation.

This podcast features two panelists: Dr. Langston Clark (@LangstonDClark) who is an assistant professor of physical education at the University of Texas at San Antonio, and Dr. Samuel Hodge who is a full professor of physical education and adapted physical education at The Ohio State University.

Welcome to the What's New in APE Podcast blog. In this episode, I was able to have a panel discussion with three APE and/or grading experts to discuss grading philosophies and procedures within the field of APE. The panelists included: Brad Wiener (@APETeacher), a former SHAPE America National APE Teacher of the year and a current an adapted physical educator for Montgomery County Public Schools; Dr. Kristi Roth (@midlifetreks), a full professor at University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point and one of the co-authors of Principles and Methods of APE and Recreation; and Dr. Matt Townsley (@mctownsley) an assistant professor in the educational leadership department at the University of Northern Iowa. Within this discussion, the panel tackles topics related to (1) what is the purpose of grading, (2) barriers and issues with grading in APE, (3) standards-based grading in APE, (4) an adapted grading scale APE teachers can use within their classes, and (5) grading policies and laws.

For the 5th, and likely final episode of this COVID series, I sat down to discuss how COVID has impacted the day-to-day life of Dr. Kristi Roth, a full professor at University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point and one of the co-authors of Principles and Methods of Adapted Physical Education and Recreation. In addition, we discuss how to use her app to find APE activities and how-to videos. She details how she has created this app, as well as other technologies to curate quality content for others to easily use in order to find useful content. To further drive home the point that these mediums allow experts to curate and provide easily accessible resources to those who need it. Finally, Dr. Roth and I discuss best practices in online learning, and some advantages of using online learning.

For the 4th, and final installment of the COVID-19 APE podcast series, Brad Wiener (@APETeacher) joined us to discuss how he has navigated his job as an adapted physical educator during the pandemic. Brad is a former SHAPE America National APE Teacher of the year and is a currently an adapted physical educator for Montgomery County Public School, in Maryland. In this episode, Brad discusses how he is delivering APE services to students, how his school is monitoring students' IEPs, as well as he shares how and why he developed a variety of APE related resources during the pandemic. Brad has revamped his APE website since the pandemic, and has created a variety of resources (curriculum for different age groups, videos, worksheets, etc) that parents and APE teachers can use to continue to provide services to students with disabilities. In addition, Brad discusses how we need to use these resources as templates, and customize them for our individual students' needs.

For the 3rd installment of the COVID-19 series, Dr. Melissa Bittner (@CSULB_APE) discussed how she is coping with the pandemic from a university viewpoint. Dr. Bittner is an assistant professor of adapted physical education at California State University, Long Beach. Because of the pandemic, her undergraduates were missing the opportunity to work with students with disabilities, so Dr. Bittner took the initiative to create an online practicum program, where her students conduct a free online lesson Tuesday through Friday at 1 pm PST.

Because of the recent COVID-19 pandemic, we decided to create a series of podcasts that highlight some different resources that may help APE teachers deliver services to students with disabilities during this time.

For the second episode. we had Matthew Bassett (@PhysEdApps) tell us about a plethora of resources he has developed with the help with several other physical educators across the nation, for SHAPE America. Matt is a general physical educator for San Jose Charter Academy in California, and in 2017 was named the CAHPERD Elementary Teacher of the Year. Matt discussed how his job has been impacted by the pandemic, how he plans on continuing to deliver quality physical education to his students, and how he started working with SHAPE America to develop the SHAPE America Corona Virus Resources page, which provides a resource list of different online physical education resources one can use to continue to deliver quality physical education services to students during the pandemic. In addition, he outlines a variety of tutorial videos for physical educators to use to help them through this crisis.

Because of the recent COVID-19 pandemic, we decided to create a series of podcasts/blog posts that highlight some different resources that may help APE teachers deliver services to students with disabilities during this time. Please contact Scott McNamara @ [email protected] if you have any additional resources we should highlight.

For the first episode in this series, we had David Gelsak from Exercise Connection to come on and discuss his Exercise Buddy app. David briefly discusses his how he created Exercise Connection, how he is dealing with COVID-19 as a business owner, how APE teachers and families can utilize Exercise Buddy during the pandemic, and how he is continually adapting his program and app.

This episode of What’s New in APE is extra special, as we have a guest moderator taking the reins today. Dr. Barry Lavay, an APE professor at California State University, Long Beach and longtime contributor to the podcast, is tackling his second podcast series and interviewed Dr. David Porretta about his career in the field of APE, as well as his insights on the status of APE and his friendship with the Late Dr. Joseph Winnick. Dr. David Porretta is a pioneer in the field of APE and has many noteworthy achievements. Dr. Porretta is a Faculty Emeritus from the Department of Human Sciences at The Ohio State University.

For the second episode, Dr. Lavay and Dr. Porretta give an in-depth analysis on the development and maintenance of one of the most well-known APE textbooks in the field "APE and Sport" which is published by Human Kinetics. They discuss how this book was unique in its' content and format, how the book has changed over the years, potential changes to the 7th edition of the textbook, and how this book was foundational in the development for of the Human Kinetics publishing company.

Hello! This episode of What’s New in APE is extra special, as we have a guest moderator taking the reins today. Dr. Barry Lavay, an APE professor at California State University, Long Beach and longtime contributor to the podcast, is tackling his second podcast series and interviewed Dr. David Porretta about his career in the field of APE, as well as his insights on the status of APE and his friendship with the Late Dr. Joseph Winnick.

Dr. David Porretta is a pioneer in the field of APE and has many noteworthy achievements. Dr. Porretta is a Faculty Emeritus from the Department of Human Sciences at The Ohio State University. In addition, he has has numerous major publications and has regularly presented scholarly papers at international, national, and state meetings.

For this very first episode, Dr. Lavay talks to Dr. Porretta about his friendship with Dr. Joe Winnick. More specifically, Dr. Porretta explains how Dr. Winnick helped to share the field of APE since the late 1960's and influenced his own personal and professional growth. Areas touched on include Dr. Winnick's: (1) ability to secure large external grants to fund APE related areas, (2) development and maintenance of one of the most well-known APE textbooks in the field "APE and Sport" which is published by Human Kinetics, (3) contributions to the National Consortium for Physical Education for Individuals with Disabilities (NCPEID), and his (4) journey to create the BrockPort Physical Fitness Test.

Please stay tuned for the next episode where Dr. Poretta continues to discuss his own research, the field of APE, and his professional growth through the years.

I recently had the opportunity to talk with Dr. Luis Columna about his background in the field of APE, and his recent projects and research endeavors. Dr. Columna is a native of San Juan Puerto Rico and currently is an Associate Professor in the Kinesiology Department at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. His research focuses on ways to increase the participation of families (especially Hispanic) of children with disabilities into physical activity and also his research focuses on ways to better prepare physical activity professionals and physical education teachers to work with diverse populations. One of Dr. Columna's projects that is discussed with the podcast is FitFamilies. FitFamilieis is a physical activity program that brings together children with disabilities, their parents, college students and in-service professionals in the fields of APE and special education.