The last day of a course is often viewed as awkward, abrupt, and even antithetical to a course's aims. More often than not, prime opportunities for reflection, reinforcement, reconciliation, and closure are typically subsumed to administrative tasks and end-of-course exhaustion. This paper summarizes the scant end-of-course literature, reviews the…

A collaboration between youth in a refugee camp in Malawi, U.S. college students, and a professor of folklore has produced a website and forthcoming book manuscript. The project augments opportunities for the artists, all of whom are refugees or asylum seekers, to share their work, bring visibility to the talent in the camp, raise awareness about…

The purpose of this article is to encourage physical educators to consider their hobbies and interests and think of ways to connect with students who may not naturally find themselves attracted to our classes. This article shares successes of a high school run club that was offered twenty years ago to high school marching band members and their…

Schools around the nation are attempting to increase the amount of physical activity (PA) students receive through a variety of creative means. Recently, organizations such as the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the National Institute of Health (NIH) have sounded an alarm about the lack of time children spend in PA participation. The purpose…

Having conversations about death and dying can be very difficult to initiate and engage in with others. The following activity, based on the card game The Death Deck, was designed to encourage students to engage with others about difficult conversations surrounding death and dying. The activity provides students with questions and prompts that…

Physical activity (PA) promotion is an ideal intervention target for public health because it has the potential to help individuals feel better, sleep better, and perform daily tasks more easily, in addition to providing disease prevention benefits. There is strong evidence that individual-level theory-based behavioral interventions are effective…

Schools, community organizations, and major cultural entities can address educational inequities by engaging parents and children in arts processes, projects, and performances. Three cases featuring work in the arts show promise in contributing to the positive academic and social development of learners across the socio-economic spectrum. Learning…

Students benefit from exploring nature and participating in outdoor activities that challenge them emotionally and physically. The purpose of this article is to describe an outdoor education class with 21 undergraduate physical education teacher education (PETE) students and the benefits of participating in this experience. The second purpose is…

Group contingencies are evidence-based behavioral interventions frequently employed in educational settings. Group contingencies are composed of four distinct parameters: (1) a criterion, (2) a reward, (3) target students, and (4) target behaviors. Although it is common practice for teachers to reveal these parameters to students before the…

The purpose of this article is to present the Knights of Distinction, a co-curricular program that encourages undergraduate students to plan, connect, and reflect in the pursuit of their academic and professional goals. Knights of Distinction is a program within the Office of Experiential Learning at the University of Central Florida. Its purpose…

The 2018 Report Card on Physical Activity for Children and Youth reported that only 24% of U.S. children and youth ages 6 to 17 meet the national recommendation of 60 minutes of daily physical activity, grading the nation at a D-. Schools can help students meet this national recommendation, as close to 60 million children and adolescents attend…

Learning how to regulate emotions is a significant developmental milestone in a child's life. It is important to understand which activities help children cope with emotionally distressing situations. One such activity, I argue, is drawing. In this article, I consider 2 ways in which drawing elevates mood in children: Drawing allows them to be…

Despite the strength and resilience that military families demonstrate, military youth can experience socioemotional and academic issues as a natural response to frequent change and uncertainty. Amid increased calls to support service members and their families, concerted efforts have been made to develop mentoring programs specifically for…

Research has pointed to a critical need for primary prevention and intervention strategies. This has only been magnified since the COVID-19 pandemic and with the shortages of school-based mental health providers. Active Minds is a national organization dedicated to "changing the conversation about mental health" (Active Minds, n.d.-b) by…

Programs that seek to engage participants in arts-based programming may be drawn to creative youth development (CYD), a youth-focused, holistic approach to learning through creative expression. As the Creative Youth Development National Partnership (2018) defines it, "'Creative youth development' is a recent term for a longstanding theory of…