Adult learning Theory - Other models often used in outdoor education

Self Development

- Experiential learning cycle
- Comfort/Challenge zones
- Circle of concern/influence
- Above/Below the line
- Self Talk - Good/Bad Wolf
- Learning stages - unconscious/conscious skilled/unskilled or competent
- Anger management
- SMART goals
- Adventure wave
- Head/Heart/Hands
- 7Ps
- River of life
- Habits - river flow theory
- Mountain as metaphor

Social Development

- Feedback - DESC model
- Johari's Window
- Challenge vs. Support
- Stages of Group Development
- Team/Task/Individual
- Synergy 1+1+1=5
- Conflict Resolution
- Moving left-right, good-great
- Leadership
- Adult-Adult vs Parent/Child

Values

- Questions to stimulate values choices
- Finding True North model

Activity Nine - Sustainability

Definitions

Sustainable Development- "development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." (Brundtland Report, 1987)

- However often sustainability is narrowed down to look at just the environmental perspective. The diagram created by Barry Law (2006) below shows a view of sustainability to consider not only environmental factors but also social and economic factors. I would agree with this view of sustainability but would suggest that individual or self development factors also be included. I view this as separate to social factors - as it may be factors that are unique or individual to a person. Such as values, views of the world or spirituality; all of which can be linked or impact sustainability.




Within the Outdoor setting there are several principles or philosophies that are encouraged to ensure protection of our natural environment.
1) The Environmental Care Code which has been created by the Department of Conservation uses 8 key points to instil good practise when venturing in the outdoors. http://www.doc.govt.nz/parks-and-recreation/plan-and-prepare/care-codes/nz-environmental-care-code/
2) The other is an organisation called Leave No Trace, whose philosophy and mission is becoming increasingly well known within the New Zealand outdoor sector. Their mission is to "Promote and inspire responsible travel and outdoor recreation through education, research and partnerships. "http://www.leavenotrace.org.nz/

How can you become a more sustainable practitioner?

- Walk the Talk - get out there and role model good practises e.g. Taking public transport or cycling in to work rather than driving where possible; voting and encouraging the students to have a voice for what they believe in; helping out with community projects such as tree planting (I am hoping to get involved with the Harbour Cone replanting); all the little things like shorter showers, turning off lights, recycling; wider community education like our plan to create more awareness of pollution on the Waikato river - all these ideas however are easy to talk about but work on putting this into action!!
- Continue to develop, reflect on and improve the two environmental science courses that I am running. One of the questions that I could relate to in the presentation was - How do we engage the students? I believe that education is really important in ensuring a sustainable future. So creating a student orientated learning environment could be critical in getting the most out of these courses. Also continuing to develop new projects, such as this year we have got involved with the living campus program, Orokonui wildlife sanctuary and also hope to head out to Quarantine island to do some tree planting there. Already I have had students showing interest in doing some more conservation related work in their own time. These papers are also very environmental focus (not surprising though being an environmental science paper), but I also hope to included the social, economic and individual factors that may effect something. This is particularly relevant with their action projects.
- Keep using the outdoors as a way to encourage people to have a greater appreciation and understanding of the natural environment. In our technologically busy world we are often removed from being out there and experiencing the wonders of nature. The mountains will often speak for themselves in encouraging those who venture into them to have a greater respect and motivation to sustaining them.
- Sustainability is obviously something the polytechnic has identified as being an important aspect of their values. But as I was sitting in a room full of polytechnic staff today, with heaters pumping and no double glazed windows, I thought there are also some ways in which the polytechnic can "walk the talk'. There has been some awesome initiatives going on, such as Living Campus, which I am super proud of as a member of staff. However I think there is still room for improvement and I hope I can make some difference here in the future.
What sort of learning and teaching strategies meet your philosophy of sustainability?

- Giving the student the autonomy in their learning has worked really well - but also taking the time to guide them and set them up well for this. One example of this is using presentation topics in pairs related to global issues such as genetic engineering, sustainable housing, global warming, globalisation etc. We had done several other presentations using various mediums - and I was amazed at the quality and improvement in their presentation skills and information sharing.
- I also believe that it is important to be creative, be interactive and open minded in our teaching. One area that I hope to develop within our course is using creative mediums particularly in debriefing. Skits, dressing up, face painting, sculture, drawing/painting, interactive mediums, sock puppits can all be used to reflect on or celebrate different experiences.
- As Sir Ken Robinson identified in the u-tube video "Do Schools Kill Creativity" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtYe creativity can be a great tool to engage students and is often undervalued. He identified that children are encouraged to value certain subjects more than others, and are steered away from the subjects they enjoy because they may not get a job.
- This is often the case with outdoor education where I believe it is not considered a subject of as much value as others. This can even be seen in our funding where we are given less money for courses that are not scientific based. Why is it that sports courses get more funding that outdoor courses?? This has major implications for our program, and has caused us to re-think and ironically get creative with what and how we deliver our course. But at what effect - will the have major implications to the integrity of an outdoor program and will it be watered down as a result of economic sustainability.
- Values could also be considered when looking at sustainability. There is often values conflict that can go on, such as for myself I often travel to have adventures (both in nz and overseas) but this has negative carbon impacts on the environment which is also something important to me. So considering not the right or wrongs but the best solution to these conflicts or issues that arise.

Activity Seven - Open Education

Definition of open education practices

Open education refers to the educational philosophy that information should be shared, and that economic and entry requirement barriers to receiving of information should be eliminated. This means that regardless of whether or not a person is enrolled in the course or program, they have access to the information.

I could not find any information on open education that directly relates to the Outdoor Education sector... However in this process I did find some interesting outdoor definition websites that I could use in the future....

www.tarrak.com/EXP/exp.htm
http://wilderdom.com/definitions/definitions.html

Strategies

• It was interesting to know that Otago Polytechnic subscribes to the open education philosophy - so having the organisation support this philosophy could be very influential in creating open education practises within our course.
• One aspect where I think it is especially important that we develop open education practises in sharing information within the outdoor sector is with safety related information. These are often referred to as Safety Operation Procedures (SOPs). These SOPs are becoming more and more a key part of outdoor education, in ensuring we are running not only quality but SAFE programs. In the outdoors we often have to manage risk... and the sharing of ideas, experiences and information should be wide spread to ensure we do all we can to illiminate all risks and keep our students safe. We also need to consider how these would stand up in the court of law and draw on others knowledge in this as well.
• As we often have tight ratios in the outdoors it would be difficult to have open education for the physical aspects of our courses. However the outdoor related resources and curriculum could be shared between organisations and for individuals.
• One thing we need to consider in relation to open education is still maintaining student autonomy. There is some thought that we should not hand everything to our students on a plate and that for them to really engage and learn the information they need to take the initiative to develop their own resources and experiential journey from multiple sources.
• Understanding and using social media such as U-tube or wiki. Through the conference I learnt more about Wikipedia and Wikiversity... which is a new learning tool for me to know about. It was interesting to know that the Wiki sites are not considered as a valid research site - BUT that they are a good place to go to quickly find links to research journals. As global warming and climate change is a part of the Environmental Science course that I am teaching this was directly related, in knowing that the source may be unreliable or be controlled by group think.

Why is open education/philosophy important for teaching and learning? 

• For many people the economic cost of learning can make an education inaccessible. Therefore by having open education people can learn and develop without the cost, making learning more equitable.
• Those who have struggled through the educational system or do not meet entry requirements can still have the opportunities to pursue interests.
• On the conference it was suggested that the motivation for 99.9% of students to enrol in a course and pay a fee is so that they can get a certificate at the end. In the outdoor sector I largely disagree with this comment. Our students will often enrol in the courses because they are passionate about the outdoors and enjoy what they are learning. We have students that are doing the course not so they can go out and get a job in the industry in the future but because they want to gain the skills to go out and do it for themselves and to have fun.

Activity Five - Flexible and Blended Learning Strategies

Blended learning is a mixture of traditional face to face learning with online learning. The challenge that lies here is that Outdoor education or recreation is not a traditional type of face to face learning. Salmon (2002) identified the main disadvantage of online learning is the lack of social interation, therefore requiring a challenge in motivating the less independent student. However I believe the main disadvantage of online learning while trying to teach someone outdoor related skills is the lack on hands on experience. If they want to become good instructors this is not something that can be done by reading a text or sitting in front of a computer. They need to get out there and practise, practise, practise!!

I believe that often e-learning is employed hoping to reduce costs, but in an outdoor sense this could have dramatic effects on the instructional delivery and integrity of our program. The slide show "Developing A Blended Learning Stratey: Instructional Media and Pedagogical Considerations" asks two key questions:

1) What is the most appropriate mix of instructional media?
In response to this I do believe that blended learning can enhance our program. As was identified on the slides "Change is inevitable and tomorrow will bring newer and better technologies... but the goal is the same. Optimise technology without sacrifying instructional quality"
So how do we do this? We need to ensure that e-learning or online learning is used purely to back up practical experience, the learning by doing. This could be used to provide additional resources, log experiences, reflection tools, challenge practises, assessment tools and/or visual aids and for feedback.
An example of this was last week, where I videoed the students kayaking and then analysed and gave them feedback on what they were doing. This type of use of technology is invaluable.

 A good E-learning resource I can refer to in the future while expanding my e-learning portfolio is http://designing.flexiblelearning.net.au/gallery/all.htm. On looking at this there were several mediums that I could relate to and would consider using in my teaching in the future, which includes: blogs, journals, debates, web based content e.g. power points online, mind maps e.g. kayak rolling, online quizes e.g. my footprint, email/text contacts.

2) What are the variables to consider when selecting media?
- Student centred NOT economic driven (i.e. to cut down on course costs)
- Caters to different learning styles
- Is this an effect way of delivering content"Media are mere vehicles that deliver instruction but do not influence student achievement any more than the truck that delivers our groceries causes changes in nutrition... only the content of the vehicle can infleunce achievement."(Clark, 1993).

MY FLEXIBLE LEARNING STRATEGIES
- Continue to develop my tool box. Keep trying out new things and adapting them to meet student needs. An example of this was last week I learnt how to make a movie using pictures and video clips... so one idea would be to make a movie to present my flexible learning plan.
- Keep being creative in developing resources for the students. Several ideas of late include:
1) creating a interactive geology powerpoint - which the students responded really well to and can use in the future for assessments
2) creating a plant herbarium with the students to aid in their learning of NZ flora
3) I'm hoping to use movies e.g. McLibel to effectively highlight environmental issues
- Being a reflective practitioner. I have created a page in my folder on ideas or changes I hope to make to the program next year
4) Allow students to hand in work electronically or manually (handwritten) as long as it is legible.
5) Take on student feedback and action this. One aspect that stands out this year is timetabling changes... So coming up with systems that work and are student friendly.
6) Teaching students on an adult-adult level. I have found that most of the students are straight out of school and are used to be lecturer or talk to in a large group sense. However they tend to struggle interacting and keep focused in a less structured sense. I want to continue to discover ways to help them develop in this sense and debrief or reflect on practises more effectively. One thing we did that worked really well was to get them to do role plays on the stages of group development and then consider what they were doing well as a group and what they needed to work on.

One thing I find challenging is that Flexible learning is multi-dimensional... It should included many aspects including time, delivery and logistics, entry requirements, content, instructional approaches and resources. However there tends to be lots of literature that connects flexible learning to online learning... to the point that it almost over looks all the other dimensions.
 References

-Clark, R. (1993) Review of Educational Research Journal
-http://designing.flexiblelearning.net.au/gallery/all.htm.
-Salmon, G. (2002) E-Tivities: The key to active online learning. Kogan Page Limited: London

Activity Four - Access and Equity, Diversity and Inclusivity

Universal Design for Learning

- Cast believes that "barriers to learning are not, in fact, inherent in the capacities of learners, but instead arise in learners' interactions with inflexible educational goals, materials, methods and assessments" http://lessonbuilder.cast.org/learn.php

"The essence of UDL is flexibility and the inclusion of alternatives to adapt to the myriad variations in learner needs, styles and preferences." (Howery, 2011)

Key points in Universal Design

• Ask the student what works for them, what "sparks" them
  - I did this in environmental science with our second year students who highlighted being outside of the traditional classroom (e.g. outside) and using interaction and creativity to aid learning
• Reflection
• Celebrate Diversity
• Use multiple sources/means of representation/expression/engagement - sound, light, taste, smell, touch, doing, visual, resources
• Recognise that everyone is unique - not one size fits all
• Use concepts, ideas and information that the brain recognises (simplicity)
• Employ strategies to process information
• Don't just employ technology

Describe an example of inclusive teaching.

One example that came to mind was inclusiveness with abseiling. Often there are students that are very nervous about abseiling, they have a high level of perceived risk despite the real risk of the activity being low. One way to help with this is to explain to the students how the systems work. Such as how much force each piece of gear can take (e.g. a carabiner can take up to 22kN of force - thats 22,000 tonnes or 22,000 baby elephants) and how there are back-up systems in place (one they are controlling and one that I will control).

Another consideration may be for people who are obese or pregnant. These people will often have low self-confidence and feel like they cannot partake in abseiling. Using a chest harness or creating one using a sling can be ways to safely get them involved.

Lynch (1991a) identified issues for larger females who lacked self confidence in their physical ability and appearance. Harnesses used for abseiling can essentuate peoples figures, and they can often be self-conscious of this. One example of this was when I was working with a obese women who was going well, was over the hard part and freaked out when someone at the bottom was about to take a photo of her. She let go off the rope and was petrified, but continued to the bottom and calmed down once the camera was put away.

Some other factors that we as a course need to consider is making our timetabling and course outlines student orientated so that they are organised and aware of deadlines, meeting times, commitments and when activities are going on. This has come from constructive feedback from students about syllabus plus, last minute changes and general course structure.

"Be careful in your course design about planning for the transfer of printing cost to students - it's not a very inclusive practice. Students young and old dislike reading lots of text on screen: it's an ergonomic nightmare, and so they hit the print button." (Casey & Wilson, 2005)

With my courses going into next semester I intend to print and thoroughly go over the course outline and expectations for each paper. I also think having a flexible course schedule with assignment deadlines included would also benefit the students to keep on track.

What are some issues for access and equity in your classes?

Access in the outdoors can be constricted by many variables, such as lack of experience, right of access (private land), cost and transportation difficulties.  There are also physical and social factors that may inhibit people from having the opportunity to partake in outdoor activities.

Equity in New Zealand is something that as Outdoor educators is important to consider as our society is constantly changing. Outdoor course participation in dominated by New Zealand European/Pakeha. However there is not the corresponding number of Maori or other ethnic groups on outdoor courses despite the growing population diversity in New Zealand.

For our classes the main issue of access and equity is safety. We are training our students to be skilled outdoor practitioners who are often using judgement and experience to ensure that safety comes first and their students/clients lives are often in their hands. An outdoor experience comes with real risk and as much as we try to manage this risk, future instructors need to have a certain level of ability and understanding. It is unlike many other courses that may be more academic or indoor based.

In saying that, I believe it is really important that our students (as future outdoor instructors) have clients from all walks of life and that there is access and equity for all people to partake in outdoor activities. Our second year students this year have the opportunity to instruct tramping to disabled students from Sara Cohen School. They are also looking into Maori myths and learning their mihi. These both will hopefully expand their knowledge, understanding and experiences. I believe that more could be done here though to set them up to also have more inclusive practises.
Access and equity restrictions in the outdors can be particularly relevant for the elderly or people with disabilities that may be limited physical or mentally in their ability to undergo certain activities.
This was also identified by Brodin (2009), "The most important question is, however: how can adults with (intellectual) disabilities get access to outdoor education and how can they get opportunities to participate in regular groups and be included - not only participate together with other persons with disabilities?"  
While working at Outward Bound I had the opportunity to work with people with both physical and intellectual disabilities. From this experience I recognised two different but contributing factors that could enhance the students experience and ability to participate.
The first one was thinking outside the square and coming up with new ways that would help them be engaged. This included being very visual and simple in my teaching, creating a seating device that could enable them to be transported from their wheel chairs into the ocean, coming up with a short rope that could guide blind folk while running, putting reflective bands on other students feet so those visually impaired could watch their feet while tramping, sitting on the back of someone in a kayak to help balance it while they steered it with their arms.... the list goes on.
The second factor was helping them to get over the labels and constrictions or limitations that society had continually drummed into them. They needed to believe that it was possible. "Plus est un vous" - that more was in them, than they thought was possible.
Mark Inglis (2002), a double amputee who lost both his legs to frost bite while mountaineering is a great example of someone who could achieve amazing outdoor achievements, including climbing Mt Cook and winning a silver medal cycling at the Sydney Paralympic games using specially designed prostetic limbs. He also identified the effect that other people's attitudes had, "Being a new double amputee was, looking back, all consuming. I also had some problems with people's attitudes to me... it was really only a change in body and lifestyle from the knees down, but the approach most people.... took was that it had changed me as a person, as if my personality and 'being' had been cut out, rather than just my legs amputated. That approach, that attitude to me, rubs off and I find even if it's only a little it actually slows you down in getting on with life at 110 per cent."

DEFINITIONS:

Access

In an Outdoor context, Access has been defined as the following:

"The right of any member of the public to gain access to the New Zealand outdoors by passing or repassing on foot over land over which the public has the right of access and performing any activity that is reasonably incidental to that passing or repassing. It includes the use of mobility devices and disability-assistance dogs" (New Zealand Outdoor access Code, 2010)

Inclusion

"Inclusion can be defined in many ways... means to be part of, for instance, a group, class, community, accessibility to activities, participation and equal opportunities... the educator can support inclusion by collaborative work, experimental tasks and problem-based learning..."(Brodin, 2009).

"Many studies have shown that outdoor activities promote inclusion" (Doctoroff, 2001; Spencer, 2003).

Equity

"Educational equity is a federally mandated right of all students to have equal access to classes, facilities, and educational programs no matter what their national origin, race, gender, sexual orientation, disabilities, first language, or other distinguishing characteristic. In upholding educational equity, school districts are required to provide certain programs for students to ensure equal education. For example, students with disabilities have access to specialized education programs." http://www.education.com/definition/educational-equity/

Diversity

Diversity (Institutional)

"The multiplicity of variables that embody an institution, including its policies and programs, organisation, reputation, and staff/client population characteristics." http://www.education.com/definition/diversity/

Student Diversity

"Variation within a student population of such characteristics as race, religion, gender, cultural background, sexual orientation, or socioeconomic class." http://www.education.com/definition/diversity/

References

- Brodin, J. (2009). Inclusion through access to outdoor education: Learning in Motion (LIM), Journal of Adventure Education and Outdoor Learning, 9:2, pp. 99-113.

- Casey, J. & Wilson, P. (2005). A practical guide to providing flexible learning in further and higher education. Enhancement themes

- Doctoroff, S. (2001). Adapting the physical environment to meet the needs of 'all' young children for play. Early Childhood Education Journal, 29:2, pp. 105-109.

- Howery, K. (2011) Univeral Design for Learning: Meeting the needs of Learners

- Inglis, M. (2002). No Mean Feat.Random House Publishing, Auckland, New Zealand.

- Lynch, P (1991a). Fat girls don't abseil: Issues for girls in outdoor education. In the seventh national outdoor education conference proceeding. Frankston Victoria, Australia.

- New Zealand Outdoor Access Code. (2010). www.walkingaccess.govt.nz/store/doc/Code.final30June.pdf

- Spencer, A. (2008). Miljoer for lek, larande och samspel Studentlitteratur, Lund - [Environments for play, learning and interaction]- http://www.education.com/definition

-http://lessonbuilder.cast.org/learn.php