NAFAPA 2022 Conference

The Brock Niagara Centre of Excellence in Inclusive and Adaptive Physical Activity and the Faculty of Applied Health Sciences are proud to be the organizers of the 2022 NAFAPA (North American Federation of Adapted Physical Activity) conference in Niagara. We will be offering a hybrid conference-both in person and online options- that will ensure options for access and inclusion for persons experiencing barriers to conventional travel and conference going as well as scholars, students, and community members who wish to attend in person. We anticipate international presenters and attendees as well as interested Canadian and North American presenters and attendees.

Brock University is situated in the Niagara region in the City of St. Catharines, within an hour’s drive to the City Centre of Toronto and 20-minute drive to Niagara Falls. Known as the “Garden City,” St. Catharines is surrounded by lush orchards and vineyards to the east and west and bordered by the Niagara Escarpment to the south and Lake Ontario to the north. Brock University sits on top of the beautiful Niagara escarpment and is the only Canadian university with the distinction of being part of a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve.

The mission of NAFAPA is to advance scientific inquiry and the creation, dissemination, and application of knowledge in Adapted Physical Activity. NAFAPA’s vision is an Adapted Physical Activity field that ensures equitable opportunities for meaningful participation in physical activity, sport, and exercise for individuals experiencing disability across the lifespan. NAFAPA became a reality in October 1992 at the first symposium held in Montreal, Quebec. It is our privilege and pleasure to host NAFAPA at Brock University in October 2022, celebrating its 30th year with the theme of Communities of Practice
KEYNOTES

Dr. Øyvind Førland Standal
Øyvind Førland Standal is a professor at the Institute for Primary and Secondary Education at Oslo Metropolitan University. He earned his PhD in Sport Sciences at the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences (2009) with a dissertation on learning among wheelchair users in rehabilitation institutions. For several years, he was the program director for an educational program on physical activity and disability. Currently, his teaching is in the areas of Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy, Phenomenology and Research Methods. Øyvind teaches at all levels of teacher education and, in the PhD program in Education Science. Throughout his career, Øyvind has been particularly concerned with teaching and researching inclusion in physical education, embodied learning and adaptive physical activity. His most recent publications include various topics such as theoretical work on embodiment in adaptive physical activity, didactics of health in physical education and the role of competition in physical education. He has also written the research monograph Phenomenology and pedagogy in physical education.

Self-reflexivity in the education of future APA-professionals. A human science perspective (tentative title)

The notion of the severely able-bodied student, as discussed in literature from sociology of physical education and feminist materiality is a helpful and hopeful starting point to bring about a crucial reflection on the obstructions – not only to practice, but more fundamentally to perception and experience – that come from being someone whose lived experiences with movement have been mainly as someone fitting in. Furthermore, I highlight critical self-reflexivity as a form of reflection that is concerned with subjectivity and lived experience, but that also acknowledges how ideology and power are already present in our perceptions. By drawing on John Dewey’s theory of education as a reconstruction of experience, I discuss the implications of education for critical self-reflexivity in the education of future professional practitioners in adaptive physical activity.

Dr. Tim Fletcher

Self-study of teacher education practice: A research-driven approach to practitioner learning

Self-study is a form of practitioner inquiry that has typically been used by teacher educators to develop deep insights and understandings into the problematic and complex nature of teaching teachers. As well as being viewed as a methodology that teachers and teacher educators can use to systematically inquire into their practice, self-study is also seen as a powerful tool for practitioners’ ongoing professional learning. Although self-study has established a presence in the broad physical education teacher education literature, there are few examples of its use by adapted physical educators or physical activity practitioners, suggesting members of these communities may have much to learn from engaging with self-study, while also making significant contributions to the growth of the field. In this presentation I will provide a brief historical overview of self-study as a research methodology, highlighting its key aims and characteristics. I will also examine several examples of self-study research that have demonstrated the ways it can contribute to the knowledge base of teacher education practice broadly and adapted physical education/physical activity specifically.

Tim Fletcher is an Associate Professor in the Department of Kinesiology at Brock University, Canada. Tim’s research interests are broadly in teacher learning and self-study of practice methodology. His recent work has focused on how teachers learn to prioritize meaningful experiences in physical education. He is a member of the Self-study of Teacher Education Practice Special Interest Group of the American Educational Research Association, serves on the International Advisory Board for the journal Studying Teacher Education: A journal of self-study of teacher education practices, and co-authored the chapter on physical education teacher education in the forthcoming 2nd International Handbook of Self-study of Teaching and Teacher Education Practices.

Dr. Meghann Lloyd

Meghann Lloyd, PhD is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Ontario Tech University. She earned a Bachelor of Kinesiology (Honours) degree from Acadia University in Wolfville, Nova Scotia and a Master of Arts degree from McGill University in Montreal, Quebec. She completed her PhD at the University of Michigan in the Division of Kinesiology specifically within the Center for Motor Behavior and Pediatric Disabilities in Ann Arbor. Her expertise is in the fundamental motor skill acquisition of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. She recently finished a study funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada to investigate a motor skill intervention for 3–5-year-old children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Dr. Lloyd is the director of the Motor Behaviour and Physical Activity Lab at Ontario Tech, and she is a Research Associate at Grandview Children’s Centre.

NAFAPA is a two-and-a-half-day event with keynote speakers on each day, concurrent sessions on each day, and special presentations on each day. There is a poster session and an AGM as well as opportunities for conference attendees to visit Niagara attractions. Momentum Choir and Tomorrow’s Voices will be performing at the conference reception. Several distinct experiences at NAFAPA 2022 will be

  1. Dialogue Partners, a two-pronged approach to engaging with communities of practice where conference attendees can pre-book a conversation with other willing conference attendees for learning and idea exchange and where members of disability communities will be engaging in conversations with conference attendees and Niagara community members in pre-booked sessions where the disability community member is providing valuable insider perspectives on disability experiences.
  2. Welcome to my gymnasium, an opportunity for attendees to participate in active sessions in the gymnasium and training facility and experience adaptive pedagogies as well as strategies for inclusive active leisure.
  3. Adaptive Personal Training—Jess Silver, a disability identified woman and entrepreneur in strength and fitness (flexforaccess.ca)  will be part of the Welcome to my gymnasium session but presenting in our fitness center on Adapting Personal Training for persons experiencing disability.
  4. Community Advisory Council—My research center, the Brock Niagara Center of Excellence in Inclusive and Adaptive Physical Activity, is one of the conference planning partners and we have a community advisory council which takes up the mantra of ‘Nothing about us without us’ and consults in an ongoing way with members of various disability communities in Niagara and beyond on all the decisions my Centre makes. The CAC will be at the conference and will be interacting with conference attendees in informal day to day fashion but also with me and the conference organizers more formally at end of day de-briefs on inclusion, access, and barriers.

More information can be found from: https://brocku.ca/applied-health-sciences/kinesiology/nafapa/