Child-initiated learning,the outdoor environment and the ‘underachieving’ child

The Foundation Phase for Wales advocates an experiential, play-based approach to learning for children aged three to seven years that includes child-initiated activity within the outdoor environment. In previous research, Foundation Phase practitioners maintained that children perceived to be ‘underachieving’ within the classroom came into their own when engaged in child-initiated learning outdoors. This study, which involved eight Foundation Phase teachers, aimed to explore these perceived differences as well as teachers’ perceptions of ‘underachievement’. It is concluded that the more natural outdoor spaces in which child-initiated activity took place appeared to amplify the effects of child-initiated learning and diminish the perception of underachievement; that engagement in this project enabled some teachers to see ‘underachievement’ as being distributed across people, place and activity; and that through constructing the outdoor ‘space’ as a ‘place’ embedded with positive meanings, children may have had the opportunity to reconstruct themselves as strong, competent children rather than as ‘underachieving’ pupils.     

Changes in outdoor learning in primary schools in England, 1995 and 2017: lessons for good practice

ABSTRACT

Outdoor learning provides memorably relevant learning and authentic, contextualised opportunities to extend classroom-based education. This research draws on empirical data from surveys involving teachers in primary schools in England in 1995 and 2017 (n=61 and n=40 respectively). The evidence illustrates that schools are continuing to use their playgrounds and day visits as locations for practice. Teacher expertise had decreased by 2017 but the major challenges and barriers to implementation of time and expense remain similar in both years. Teachers no longer see outdoor ‘education’ as a subject in its own right but within the physical education curriculum although Early Years Foundation Stage practitioners report an enabling curriculum for outdoor learning. The research identifies the strength of teachers’ values and beliefs, an open approach to curriculum interpretation, the importance of suitable locations, a culture of risk benefit and positive initiatives as key ingredients for successful outdoor learning in primary schools.     

Designing learning experiences for outdoor hybrid learning spaces

With the support of various personal and institutional mobile technologies, numerous physical and virtual spaces can be turned into interesting and motivating hybrid learning settings. By its nature, outdoor mobile learning happens on the move is connected to specific locations and settings inviting learners to study their surroundings, inquire about natural phenomena and solve complex real-life problems. This poses challenges for teachers to design meaningful, contextualized and comprehensive learning experiences. The paper aims to explore what kind of mobile learning scenarios K-12 teachers create and what are the limitations and development perspectives of these scenarios. Content analysis of 25 location-based outdoor learning tracks with 465 questions and tasks was carried out. The results demonstrate that designing and implementing learning activities outside the safe, familiar classroom environment in new hybrid learning spaces is a challenging task for the teachers on many different levels. Taking Bloom’s revised taxonomy, types of contextualization and integrated learning models as frameworks for content analysis of the learning scenarios, the study shows that the teachers do not perceive the potential hybrid spaces and mobile technologies offer in order to design consistent learning experiences that emphasize higher order thinking levels, encompass contextual information and integrate knowledge from multiple disciplinary sources. The paper concludes that there is a need for more teacher training and systemic interventions into current teaching practices that encourage teachers to step outside of their existing teaching paradigms to acknowledge the pedagogical potential of hybrid learning spaces as well as the technological affordances.     

Introducing a fifth pedagogy: experience‐based strategies for facilitating learning in natural environments

Educators have identified four categories of ‘productive pedagogies’ that are considered to lead to authentic student engagement and learning in the classroom. This study was designed to explore and extend these pedagogies in the context of learning in natural environments, in particular, through the programmes of Queensland environmental education centres. In‐depth interview and observation data were collected from students, classroom teachers and centre teachers who had participated in 12 environmental education programmes across Queensland, in order to identify the strategies that are most effective in facilitating learning in the natural environment. A fifth productive pedagogy category, ‘experience‐based learning’, is proposed. Experience‐based learning is particularly important in addressing students’ environmental attitudes and actions. The implications for the delivery of environmental education programmes both within and outside the classroom are discussed.     

Getting more from getting out: increasing achievement in literacy and science through ecological fieldwork

This paper demonstrates the positive impact of learning through ecological fieldwork upon children's ability to write, and to write about science. Specifically we have carried out a relatively large-scale study (involving 379 children aged 9–11 years from 8 primary schools in North East England) comparing intervention classes (involved in fieldwork) and comparison classes (no fieldwork). Pre-intervention assessments revealed no differences between classes in mean literacy scores; post-intervention assessments revealed that significantly higher literacy scores were achieved by children who had carried out fieldwork (girls consistently outperformed boys in all classes). Intervention class children achieved higher scores in science (ecology) assessments than their comparison class peers before and after the intervention. We suggest that this may be an effect of these children thinking as scientists throughout the project. Our work confirms that a child-centred outdoor learning experience focused upon science can result in learning benefits across the wider curriculum.     

Learning in the Finnish outdoor classroom: Pupils’ views

ABSTRACT

Finnish nature schools are environmental education organisations offering outdoor programmes for classes in natural environments. They are intended to contribute to the aims of the national curriculum in various subjects. This qualitative study examines how students describe their learning in a nature school context and how they describe differences between learning in nature and learning in the classroom. After a nature school day, 30 10–11-year-old pupils participated in focus groups interviews. The data were analysed through inductive content analysis. Nature school learning was described as cognitive, affective, social and as providing practical skills learning, although some pupils claimed that they had not learned anything. The differences between the learning environments were described as differences in learning activities, concreteness, external conditions, learning topics, perceived ability to concentrate and differences in motivation. We stress the importance of reflection on learning in order to raise pupils’ awareness of their outdoor learning.     

Learning in the outdoor environment: a missed opportunity?

In 2001, the Welsh Assembly Government announced proposals for a Foundation Phase for children aged three to seven years. The Foundation Phase framework promotes a play‐based approach to children's learning in both indoor and outdoor contexts and places children's well‐being and their personal and social development at its core. While the framework is currently being piloted across Wales, full implementation will not take place until 2010; for many schools, then, this is a time of transition. This paper discusses the findings of a research project that aimed to document the current use of the outdoors by a group of early years teachers working in South Wales. Drawing on data from interviews and observations conducted in four schools, it is suggested that the teachers missed many of the opportunities afforded by the outdoor environment to enhance children's learning. The paper considers the reasons why this might be the case and comments on the distinction, apparent in two schools, between what was seen as ‘normal’ and ‘special’ outdoor activity.     

Early childhood educators’ use of natural outdoor settings as learning environments: an exploratory study of beliefs,practices, and barriers

In efforts to encourage use of natural outdoor settings as learning environments within early childhood education, survey research was conducted with 46 early childhood educators from northern Minnesota (United States) to explore their beliefs and practices regarding natural outdoor settings, as well investigate predictors of and barriers to the educational use of these settings. Of the beliefs measured, only two were significantly related to frequency of use of natural outdoor settings: belief regarding difficulty in using natural outdoor settings and belief regarding their relationship to nature. The strongest predictor of use was belief regarding difficulty in using natural outdoor settings, accounting for 67.7% of the variance in the regression model. Results indicate primary barriers to be lack of walking access to natural outdoor settings, lack of time, winter weather, and safety concerns. These findings suggest efforts to increase early childhood educators’ use of natural outdoor settings should not focus on influencing their beliefs about the value of using natural outdoor settings in early childhood education, but instead on reducing barriers, thereby making the use of these settings seem more feasible.     

论"学习型组织"的构建--对"课堂教学案例评析"的再思考

随着社会进入知识经济时代,如何组织教师学习的研究课题已摆在了面前。应对信息社会中教育改革所面临的各种挑战,教师群和学校应该成为学习型组织,其重要性毋庸置疑。“课堂教学案例评析活动”是一种随时间、环境而不断变化的,将工作与学习融为一体的组织学习形态,不仅可以提高学校内部资源、知识的利用率,不断创造出新知识,而且使教师和学校真正共同发展,共同进步。因此,它是构建学习型组织的一个极好的载体。     

It depends on the priorities: the presence and profile of outdoor education on school websites

School websites are one way in which school leaders inform the public about their school’s vision, values, achievements and the learning opportunities on offer in a way that highlights its distinctiveness in the most positive light. If outdoor education is perceived as a valued learning context and/or helps to differentiate one school from another, it is likely that it would be reflected on a school’s website. An interpretive thematic analysis of the websites of 20% of the secondary schools in New Zealand suggested that outdoor education has a presence in schools, although the magnitude of this presence depended on the priorities school leaders wished to promote. The positive outcomes and opportunities afforded by outdoor education were portrayed to emphasize a school’s appeal. However, policy and design constraints of websites restricted teachers’ input into their content, making it somewhat challenging to gauge the relationship between the presence of outdoor education on a school website and the quality of its pedagogical practice.     

Changes in Learning Environment during the Transition from Primary to Secondary School

The study used learning environment variables in investigating changes occurring as students transfer from primary to secondary school, including the role of student sex and school size pathway as influencing factors in changes in learning environment perceptions. The My Class Inventory (MCI) and Questionnaire on Teacher Interaction (QTI) were used in two data-gathering stages, one in the penultimate month of primary schooling and the other in the fourth month of secondary schooling. The sample comprised 1500 students from 47 feeder primary schools and 16 linked secondary schools. The primary schools ranged from very small isolated country schools to larger city schools with hundreds of students. Five different school size transition pathways were defined for analysis: small-to-medium, medium-to-medium, small-to-large, medium-to-large and ‘within-school’ (involving schools with a K-10 structure, but with separate primary and secondary school sites within the same campus). Although the classroom climate in secondary schools was perceived more favourably than in primary schools (especially in terms of less friction and competitiveness), the quality of teacher-student interaction was perceived to deteriorate on most dimensions assessed by the QTI (e.g. a reduction in teachers' leadership, helping/friendly, understanding and student responsibility/freedom behaviours). But changes in environment perceptions across transition varied with student sex and school size pathway. For example, perceptions of class satisfaction across transition deteriorated for girls, but improved for the boys. The findings have implications for administrators and teachers, particularly those with a role within the ‘middle school’ years. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

‘Touched by the Earth’: a place-based outdoor learning programme incorporating the Arts

With growing disconnection from the natural world, educators who work in the outdoors need to philosophically rethink their modus operandi. Past efforts by adventure and outdoor educators to promote connection with nature have often centred upon risk-centric approaches incorporating adventure-fuelled and high-adrenalin activities. This paper explores how the Arts may be incorporated into ecopedagogies, and what creative work can reveal about the nature of communication with the environment. ‘Touched by the Earth’ is a year-long place-based enrichment programme using multi-modal creative methods with young adolescent participants. Our research addressed the following questions: what does it mean to be ‘Touched by the Earth’; and how can the Arts amplify a personal relationship with the environment? Data were collected through interviews as well as student-generated material such as artefacts, video and photographs and field observation. Our findings indicate the crucial role the Arts can play in embodied and multi-sensory learning for participants, which in turn nurtures greater nature awareness and attachment. This transformation may, in fact, be termed ‘love’. We conclude that place-based, interdisciplinary and immersive modalities galvanise a deeper appreciation of the natural environment.     

Analysing attempts to support outdoor learning in Scottish schools

The new ‘Curriculum for Excellence’ in Scotland outlines a policy vision of a more integrated and holistic form of education; a commitment which offers considerable prospects for increased levels of outdoor learning in schools. With reference to Fullan’s theorizing on achieving educational change, this study investigated four main implementation areas, namely: policy aims, partnerships arrangements, and associated professionalism and sustainability issues. Evidence was collected through a series of 16 semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders at national, local authority, and school level. Despite increased agreement on aims, it was found that improving the frequency and quality of outdoor learning in schools was adversely influenced by the patchwork nature of partnership support at national and local authority levels. This has curtailed the prioritizing of outdoor learning in schools and of teachers being supported when trying to make use of their increased curriculum decision-making responsibilities. Thus, only limited evidence was found of policy-related innovation and considerable evidence of policy stasis. As such, building national capacity is proving difficult. It is concluded that further research on how some atypical schools have managed to develop their programmes offers the best prospects for understanding the complexities of achieving greater levels of outdoor learning.     

Learning opportunities in the outdoor school–empirical findings on outdoor school in Germany from the children’s perspective

This article examines learning processes and learning opportunities in the outdoor school based on 13 focus-group interviews with children (ages 8–9) at three German elementary schools. For 1 year, cross-curricular teaching had taken place once a week outside the classroom—in natural settings, at cultural sites or on school grounds. The article discusses the learning potential of the outdoor school in terms of activities that the children perceive as dominant, i.e. playing, moving and social cooperation. It will discuss and reflect upon the learning opportunities that arise as well as on the limitations of learning in out-of-school settings and the role of learning in the children’s perception. The study reveals that the outdoor school as a place of teaching, play, exploration and experience offers formal and informal learning opportunities and encourages children to engage among themselves and within their social and inanimate surroundings by challenging them physically, cognitively, perceptually and socially. Learning processes initiated through play, activity and social cooperation are often not perceived by the children as ‘learning’ in the formal sense. Apparently, a significant proportion of the outdoor school’s potential lies in the combination of teacher-structured and informal learning processes that arise spontaneously.     

The importance of environment for teacher professional learning in Malta and Scotland

Current reforms in the Maltese and Scottish educational contexts can only be fully implemented if teachers radically transform the way they teach. Teacher professional learning is an important mechanism that policy-makers, school leaders and administrators have to achieve this. Teacher professional learning is, above all, situated within the specific social workplace environment of teacher practice. Thus, schools need to be recognised as important sites of professional learning for teachers. In Malta and Scotland teachers were asked about their professional learning to identify how the learning environment within individual schools affects professional learning. In both countries, collaboration and school leadership were key components in determining a school’s learning environment. Data analysis led to the production of examples of expansive and restrictive features. Policy-makers, school leaders and administrators can use these features to examine how schools operate in terms of helping or hindering professional learning in the school environment.     

Learning outdoors or with a computer: the contribution of the learning setting to learning and to environmental perceptions

ABSTRACT

Background: Outdoor learning and computer-based learning are two different alternatives to in-class conventional teacher-centered learning.

Purpose: This study compares the outdoor learning setting with computer-based learning in class. It examines the influence of the two different learning settings on academic achievements, the learning experience, and pro-environmental perceptions.

Sample: A total of 90 elementary school students (third and fourth-grade classes) participated in the study.

Design and methods: The academic knowledge of the study participants was tested through identical exams for both learning settings. In addition, in each group the students’ perceptions were examined by means of a questionnaire about environmental values and the learning experience.

Results: The study demonstrates that academic achievements in the two settings were similar, but the students expressed more enthusiasm about the outdoor learning experience than about in-class learning. In addition, the outdoor learning setting contributed more to promoting positive environmental perceptions even though students did not learn directly about environmental issues and sustainability.

Conclusions: These findings suggest that learning in the natural environment is valuable: Alongside the fostering of computerized learning, it is also important to promoteoutdoor learning settings and integrate both settings by implementing mobile technologies in the outdoor teaching.     

A school practitioner's response to the discussion of the Learning Outcomes Theme Group

New devolutionary powers for education have been enthusiastically seized on by politicians and policy-makers alike to promote a more integrated and holistic form of education in Scotland. This period of curriculum renewal offers the prospect of increased levels of outdoor education; however, to date there is a lack of a clearly agreed rationale for learning and clarity about how curriculum will be experienced by students. Consequently, we analyse pertinent conceptual questions about these matters through reviewing articles and policy announcements prior to advancing, in a preliminary fashion, a rationale for outdoor education which conceives of outdoor learning primarily as a moral endeavour. In developing the proposed rationale as the organising framework for learning, the article critically considers the multifarious challenges of connecting policy intentions with the authentic learning experiences of students. In so doing it discusses many of the most apparent curriculum and pedagogical barriers to learning, which have led in recent years to fragmented provision and the under-realisation of increased levels of deeply embedded and connected outdoor learning experiences.     

‘The woods is a more free space for children to be creative; their imagination kind of sparks out there’: exploring young children’s cognitive play opportunities in natural,manufactured and mixed outdoor preschool zones

Outdoor preschools are critical for children’s play and development. Integrating observational and interview methods, this study examined four-to-five-year-old children’s cognitive play experiences in an outdoor preschool with natural, mixed and manufactured zones. The observational results indicated that the natural and mixed zones offered a diverse spectrum of cognitive play, were supportive of different learning styles and expanded their understanding about the world. Children preferred the diverse, challenging and constantly evolving natural settings in these zones. Integrating diverse natural and manufactured settings with loose elements, the mixed zone supported considerable opportunities for functional, exploratory and games with rules play behaviors. The accessible loose materials inspired children’s imagination, social engagement and games. In contrast, the manufactured zone offered the most functional and non-play behaviors, and was perceived as an unexciting, predictable and tedious environment. The findings suggest incorporating natural features and settings in outdoor preschools to support a diverse spectrum of cognitive play.