Transdisciplinary Personnel Preparation for Special Physical Education in Rural Montana.

Overview & Synopsis

Federal legislation requires that all handicapped children be afforded an appropriate and individualized physical education program. The state education agency of Montana, however, has not assumed this responsibility, and unqualified special education classroom teachers and regular physical education teachers are reluctantly charged by local school administrators to assume it. Through three federal personnel preparation projects, the University of Montana Physical Education-Handicapped Program has established a transdisciplinary training program to increase the quality and number of qualified special physical educators available to the rural areas of Montana. Training is focused around the following contextual goals: interdisciplinary recruitment of training personnel, data-based and metacognition methodologies for personnel training, transdisciplinary design of instructional strategies, a preservice integrating inservice model, and university coursework premised on universal excellence. The program, resulting in a Master of Science degree, involves 54 quarter credit hours of study. Statistical data on the condition of special physical education in Montana are outlined, and strategies that were found to be successful in rural personnel preparation are listed. (JDD)