BSU Hosts Developmental Adapted Physical Education Workshop for Teachers

This year, Bemidji State University hosted a workshop called DAPE in Your Backyard this year. DAPE, which stands for Developmental Adapted Physical Education, is a program that provides physical education, instruction, and services for students with disabilities who experience significant delays or disorders in physical development.

There are 11 regions throughout the state that participate in program, and each year, a different region holds a DAPE in Your Backyard workshop. This year, Regions 1 & 2 in northwest Minnesota hosted the event, where teachers and students in the DAPE program met and learned from one another.

“Physical education teachers are just naturally motivated, like, we learn best through movement,” said DAPE program coordinator Sherry Halloway. “Physical education and DAPE teachers really do work kind of in a silo when we’re in the school. You don’t usually have two or three physical education or DAPE teachers, it’s usually one or two. And so to get together and to network and to share information, that’s the best thing. That’s the best way for us to learn.”

Being a DAPE teacher comes with a lot of responsibilities for maintaining energy levels to engage students effectively in the classroom.

“[It requires] new creative, innovative ideas for their students to get internally motivated to – it’s pretty high energy to be a physical education and DAPE teacher,” explained Halloway. “You got to come on, kind of on stage every day ready to move with your students.”

Keeping teachers active and motivated is what the DAPE program does. It keeps things fresh for the students to learn and adapt to new lessons that will be taught throughout the year.

“[I] just get a whole bunch more new ideas and ways to adapt and modify my lesson plans. And the biggest thing is how to change and include different types of equipment and new techniques,” said DAPE Program student Nicholas Mutchler on what he gains from the workshop. “I’ve seen, like, when I was growing up, there’d be kids that would be left out throughout a lesson because the teacher didn’t know how to change or didn’t know how to adapt the lesson to help that student. And I feel like every lesson should have everyone involved from the get-go.”

This fall, the MNDAPE conference will be hosted at Camp Friendship in Annandale, Minnesota, where participants can learn new activities.