Outdoor Education Commons^™

Remote Learning - The Future Of Education: Effective Instructional Strategies Used By Parent Educators And Recommendations For Building Capacity, Raelene Ferguson Haugen

Dissertations

Purpose: The purpose of this mixed methods Delphi study was to identify the remote learning instructional strategies used by expert Southern California parent educators for implementing the anticipatory set, modeling, checking for understanding, and guided practice elements of Madeline Cheek Hunter’s Instructional Theory Into Practice (ITIP) framework. The study sought to identify how expert Southern California parent educators rated the effectiveness of the remote learning instructional strategies in the aforementioned elements of Hunter’s ITIP framework. Additionally, the purpose was to generate recommendations from expert Southern California parent educators to build capacity in the identified effective instructional strategies.

Methodology: The classical …

Steam Report By Siri Ojamaa, Jacqueline Docampo

STEM Month

My name is Siri Ojamaa I am in 5th grade at Theadore Roosevelt school. I live in Weehawken, NJ. I really love Steam and I wanted to tell you about my experience with Steam

Student Perception Of Essential Employability Qualities In A First-Year Experience Course, Kara S. Schotter

Morehead State Theses and Dissertations

A capstone submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Education in the Ernst and Sara Lane Volgenau College of Education at Morehead State University by Kara S. Schotter on April 4, 2022

Teaching For Transformation: Developing Agency And Solidarity Consciousness In A Critical-Transdisciplinary, Garden-Based Urban Environmental Studies Program, Pieranna Pieroni

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation focuses on “Community Roots,” an instantiation of urban, garden-based environmental education that employs a “critical-transdisciplinary” design framework and pedagogies. The “crit-trans” construct, articulated by the Urban Environmental Studies Research Coven (Strong et. al., 2016) is offered as both a generative approach to liberatory (environmental) pedagogies with applications across the curriculum and as a form of resistance to neoliberal logics shaping educational (and other) settings. After situating Community Roots in its socio-environmental, institutional, historical and theoretical contexts, a detailed description of the course’s instantiation of crit-trans pedagogy is offered. Additionally, reflections of 14 youth and adult participants are analyzed, …

Queering Beyond Pronouns: The Necessity Of Indigenizing Learning Communities, Gillian Imazumi-Hegarty

Master's Projects and Capstones

Learners who do not see themselves reflected in schooling face mental health, social and academic hardships. While centring marginalized identities and pursuing efforts to queer learning spaces is vital, it cannot end with attention to gender and sexuality. In order to best serve learners and community members, learning environments must commit to indigenizing as well. This paper culminates in a handbook which seeks to provide best practices for engaging with learners and holding space, as well as includes a sample curriculum and resources for further development. This handbook is focused for educators on unceded ancestral Ohlone Lands, and centres the …

Decolonial Water Pedagogies: Invitations To Black, Indigenous, And Black-Indigenous World-Making, Fikile Nxumalo

Occasional Paper Series

In this paper, I share everyday stories of young people’s pedagogical encounters with water. I share these stories as illustrations of pedagogies that welcome young people into caring relationships with more-than-human life. I focus on the decolonial potential of these pedagogical encounters in relation to what they activate for Black, Indigenous and Black-Indigenous world making.

Science In Early Childhood Education, Olivia Kocina

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

Science is often limited or absent in an early education classroom. It is important to give children an outlet to experience science in the classroom or through lesson plans. Having science at an early age can provide children the opportunities to build up their reasoning, to question things about the world, and later in life to feel more confident in other STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, and math) activities or areas. To address this need, I created a 3-day program for 3 to 5 year-olds at Little Learners of Aptos School in Aptos, California.

Students’ Meaning-Making Journeys Towards Self-Authorship Through Self-Designed Gap Year Experiences, Erin Garcia

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This phenomenological, qualitative study addressed student perceptions of their meaning-making process towards self-authorship in a self-designed gap year experience and was conducted in a public higher educational institution in the Southeast. Data was gathered through interviews from a purposeful sample of gap year program participants and program administrators. Emerging themes and categories were identified by coding and analyzing the interview data, such as continual reflection reinforces the value of individual meaning-making, self-expectations versus self-worth, the influence of societal expectations are minimized, and self-designed learning helps to solidify changes in self-authorship. The data showed a strong connection between multiple meaning-making contexts …

The River And The Ranger: The Crafting And Background Of An Interpretive Program, Amy J. Heusinkvelt

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

The central part of this creative project was the development and presentation of an interpretive program delivered in conjunction with employment at the St. Croix National Scenic Riverway. To supplement this place-specific program, a second program was developed retaining similar themes to the first, but designed to be presented in Lincoln. A brief history of the National Park Service as well as the fundamentals of interpretation were researched and elaborated upon to provide both a base and background for presentation of the interpretive programs. The project includes both self-assessment of the programs and research, as well as remarks, suggestions, and …

Training And Development: Communication And The Multigenerational Workplace, Michael G. Strawser

Journal of Communication Pedagogy

Communication practitioners, especially those who facilitate training and development workshops, should focus on generational differences as a subset of their communication training efforts. This article positions the multigenerational workplace and generational differences as a relevant topic for communication trainers and provides cursory information related to different generations. Ultimately, 10 best practices to address generational differences in business contexts are discussed.

Raising An Indoor Generation: Outdoor Environmental Education Impact On Adolescent Development, Daisy Elizabeth Bewley

Student Theses 2015-Present

In an increasingly digital world, children are growing up with less involvement and interaction with the environment. Hands-on and experiential learning is less popular in schools and a more test-oriented and numerical evaluation is increasingly popular. This thesis explores the decrease in outdoor environmental education and the impact that has on adolescent development and developmental milestones in children. This impact extends past just mental development and impacts the physical health development of children. Obesity, attention deficit disorders, and other behavioral issues are just a few of the signs of the problems that have arisen due to a decrease in environmental …

Outdoor Activities To Improve Writing, Alyssa Kyllonen

Conspectus Borealis

No abstract provided.

Do Corporate Owned Adaptive Learning Platforms Perpetuate Banking Style Learning? Integrating Technology For Activism Into Transformational Sustainability Education, Tina M. Garner

Leadership for Sustainability Education Comprehensive Papers

We live in a world that tends to be controlled by corporations. The public school system should be wary of the problems that corporate control has on education. Even though public schools should not have corporate influence, the fact remains that they do, and this perpetuates Freire's banking style learning. Through time, the corporate influence in education was through educational materials such as book sales. Since the decline of the use of books and the growth of the use of technologies, corporations have followed suit through the sales of Adaptive Learning Platforms. Through leveraging the technology which students enjoy using, …

Claiming The Promise Of Place-Based Education

Occasional Paper Series

No abstract provided.

Addressing Burnout In Outdoor Education, Perry A. Darby

Student Publications

The role of instructors in the field of outdoor education is crucial, and those who aspire to spend their life teaching and helping others experience growth are incredibly drawn to this line of work. According to Two Factor Theory, this industry is rich in growth factors, hence the strong allure, but severely lacks in hygiene factors, causing a high rate of burnout in the industry. For the betterment of both the instructor experience and the industry itself, an emphasis must be paced on providing more of those hygiene factors in order to retain experienced and enthusiastic outdoor educators.

Critical Embodied Praxis For Social Justice And Peace Educators: A Story Of Personal Transformation Through Analysis Of My Jewish And Settler Identities, Cara Michelle Silverberg

Capstone Collection

In this paper, I examine definitions of and relationships between violence, oppression, peace, liberation, and embodiment in the context of critical pedagogy in order to construct a theory of critical embodied praxis for social justice and peace educators. Considering the body to be a tangible vessel through which narratives and mechanisms of violence are expressed and maintained, I explore the potential of the body to be a vessel through which liberatory narratives may be generated and shared. After constructing a theory of critical embodied praxis, I illustrate this framework in action through a personal narrative that explores the intersections …

Steam Lessons From The Forest: Ingenuity, Instruments And Autonomy, Tracey Hunter-Doniger

The Transdisciplinary STEAM+ Journal

This article discusses a case study of an environmental art camp that was modeled after choice-based pedagogies. At this camp the children were able to choose their activities, and taught how to think and work like an artist/scientist using a sketch/field book as a guiding instrument for their inquiry and empowerment. What was found was that three pillars of empowerment formed a foundational structure consisting of three interrelated factors that inspired the campers: 1) ingenuity, 2) a useful instrument, and 3) autonomy. Cultivating the artist/scientist habits gave the students the ingenuity or practical knowledge and understanding of how the roles …

A Model For Cultivating Global Engagement Beyond Academic Tourism, Victor D. Carmona, Tizziana Carmona

Jesuit Higher Education: A Journal

The message to environmental scholars in Pope Francis’ Encyclical “Laudato Si” is clear: contributions from Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) must serve to inform both local and international conversations as well as connect learning communities in developed and developing nations. In the hope of fostering international opportunities that challenge U.S. students to link their academic degrees with social justice elements that calibrate them to the historical reality the overwhelming majority of the world experiences, we outline a teacher-scholar model that serves as a tool for the advancement of social and environmental justice issues in developing countries.

Developing Children’S Physical Literacy: How Well Prepared Are Prospective Teachers?, Judith Dinham, Paul Williams

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

While the known health impacts of sedentary lifestyles have focused attention on children’s outdoor activity, the development of their physical literacy – the physiological, social, cultural, cognitive, expressive, and psychological dimensions of their physicality – is much less in focus.

Developing children’s physical literacy is embedded in the Early Years Learning Framework and Primary curriculum: Health and Physical Education, and the performing arts subjects within The Arts. This study asks “How well prepared are pre-service teachers to implement a program that contributes to developing children’s physical literacy?”

This mixed methods study includes an environmental scan of BEd courses at 12 …

Employing Text Messaging As An Instructional Tool: Effects On Academic Achievement And Sense Of Connectedness, Mary Sell

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This quasi-experimental, non-equivalent groups study investigated the effects of instructional text messages on the academic achievement and sense of connectedness of high school students enrolled in economics classes in north Georgia. Previous research on text messaging has shown that it (a) is the preferred method used by adolescents for communication, (b) increases student motivation to learn, (c) allows for ubiquitous learning, and (d) was found to be useful and acceptable by students. The Test of Economic Literacy, Fourth Edition was used to measure academic achievement, and the Classroom Community Scale was used to measure sense of connectedness. Results of the …

Radical Social Ecology As Deep Pragmatism: A Call To The Abolition Of Systemic Dissonance And The Minimization Of Entropic Chaos, Arielle Brender

Student Theses 2015-Present

This paper aims to shed light on the dissonance caused by the superimposition of Dominant Human Systems on Natural Systems. I highlight the synthetic nature of Dominant Human Systems as egoic and linguistic phenomenon manufactured by a mere portion of the human population, which renders them inherently oppressive unto peoples and landscapes whose wisdom were barred from the design process. In pursuing a radical pragmatic approach to mending the simultaneous oppression and destruction of the human being and the earth, I highlight the necessity of minimizing entropic chaos caused by excess energy expenditure, an essential feature of systems that aim …

Teaching Place-Based Science In Kindergarten, Lucy Atkins

Capstones, Research Projects, and Curricula

This action research explores how kindergarten students learn about forces and motion through inquiry-based, place-based methods. The learning took place as part of an existing day spent learning outdoors, known as Forest Monday, that includes extended time for free play. The three sub-questions addressed 1) science content learning, 2) science practice application, and 3) the incorporation of science content and practices into free play time outdoors. It was a mixed-methods study, with science assessment data supporting observations and interviews. The participants were 12 kindergarten students in a rural elementary school. All students were assessed and interviewed but observations were focused …

Natural Learning Environments And The Social-Emotional Development Of Students With Sensory Processing Challenges, Denise Elizabeth West

Dissertations, Masters Theses, Capstones, and Culminating Projects

This study examined the impact of a natural learning environment on the social-emotional development of students with Autism and/or Sensory Processing Disorder. For this research, social-emotional development consisted of social behavior, communication, and participation. The elements of a traditional classroom are characterized by confinement, harsh lighting/acoustics, and other habitual triggers for sensory discomfort. A natural learning environment can provide students with natural stimuli, fresh air, natural acoustics, natural lighting, etc. Additionally, the natural learning environment fosters a connection with nature, which research shows is important for the self-discovery, self-advocacy, and self-efficacy of all humans. Considering the artificial nature of the …

The Effects Of School-Based Tutoring On The Reading Scores Of Third Grade Students, Jenny Washington

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Reading below grade level in the third grade is a serious issue that too many students are facing. If struggling readers do not improve their reading skills prior to entering the fourth grade, they risk academic failure and limited success in the future. It is important, therefore, to get students who are not reading on grade level back on track as soon as possible. The purpose of this quantitative causal-comparative study was to determine the effectiveness of tutoring for improving the reading skills of third graders. A sample population of 2,565 third graders from 43 Title I elementary schools in …

Integrating A Farm Study Into A Mixed Age Classroom, Rachel Kanegis

Graduate Student Independent Studies

This paper, Integrating A Farm Study Into A Mixed Age Classroom, explores the impact and benefits of integrating a farm study into a classroom. It reports on the course and the results of how students responded to the farm study over one full school year. In addition, it shows how the integrated farm study could be incorporated into the core academic topics such as reading, writing, math, social studies, and science. In fact, this paper proves how students become more motivated and engaged to learn in the core academic topics through their focus on the farm study. The class that …

From Page To Place: Wordless Picture Books And Field Trips For A 21st Century Curriculum, Margaret Stein

Graduate Student Independent Studies

With the purpose of education being to produce successful world citizens, the educational system must grow with the changing economic and social climate. Operating in a creative and knowledge-based economy, students educated in the 21st Century must be in an environment that fosters creativity, critical thinking, and recognition of complex patterns in order to thrive in the new economic structures. Proposing a curricular sequence using wordless picture books and field trips to develop and strengthen these skills, this paper focuses on the growth of literacy in all forms as the strongest foundation for creating curious and life-long learners. Utilizing the …

Expanding The Walls Of The Classroom: Difficulties And Successes In Expedition Based Learning, Jaime Evans

Scholarly and Creative Works Conference (2015 - 2021)

When planned and executed with purpose and precision, expedition based, experiential education can deepen student learning, increase engagement, and help close the achievement gap. Yet, this approach to education remains the exception, rather than the norm in a standard public high school setting. The purpose of this research project is to better understand the experiences that teachers and administrators have when planning and executing expeditions, and to explore the obstacles that prevent and/or inhibit teachers from teaching outside the classroom.

From Outside To Online: Unanticipated Directions For Utah Master Naturalist, Mark Larese-Casanova, Jennifer Perkins

Journal on Empowering Teaching Excellence

Utah Master Naturalist is an award-winning Utah State University Extension program that promotes stewardship of Utah’s natural world through place-based, experiential field courses across the state. Although successful in eliciting positive short- and long-term impacts, Utah Master Naturalist’s traditional five-day field courses were unavailable to many students and instructors due to constraints of time and location. This case study examines Utah Master Naturalist’s first hybrid course, Desert Explorations, and describes the positive results from our pilot study, how a hybrid course solves availability issues, and how field-based learning theories can be adapted to online education through careful design.

Best Practices For Training New Communication Graduate Teaching Assistants, Melissa A. Broeckelman-Post, Kristina Ruiz-Mesa

Journal of Communication Pedagogy

Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs) are often the first college instructors who new students meet when they arrive for their first day of class, and as instructors and as students, GTAs are the future of the discipline. As such, GTAs need to receive comprehensive training in a variety of pedagogical, procedural, and professional areas to help graduate students continue to develop as instructors and, eventually, into full-time faculty. To assist basic course directors, department chairs, and faculty in creating and supporting a comprehensive and ongoing GTA training program, this article provides 10 best practices for training new GTAs who will be …

Play It Forward: Cooperative Learning & Structured Play During Recess, Tyler Elwin, Mary Rossi

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

Cooperative learning and structured play (CLASP) are two things that have gone unappreciated in the modern educational setting. This is an important issue for many local low-income schools as the dropout rate is so high. CLASP ideals come with a wide array of positive outcomes that look to brighten the futures of affected youth. CLASP provides an incredible number of scholarly benefits: increased school involvement, higher GPA, improved interpersonal relationships, increased ability to work as a team, etc. This capstone identifies these critical benefits and addresses the best way to properly utilize CLASP within the school setting. The three primary …