Teachers are learners, too, constantly training and improving what they do in the classroom. This engaging and meaningful course is designed to combine getting out of the normal classroom with hands-on experience in outdoor education. In it, outdoor educators teach teachers how to be outdoor educators. This is not your normal meeting, conference or lecture; this is experiential education for teachers!
Teachers are experts in their classrooms and outdoor educators are experts in their “classroom”. This PD is about outdoor educators sharing their expertise with indoor educators – teachers teaching teachers.
Professional development is an investment the school makes in its teachers. With CAS and OLE requirements and the like seeing more and more student groups coming into the outdoors, this investment is becoming more important for teachers to get the best outcomes for their students in a different “classroom”.
Student achievement on such outdoor courses is directly related with the investment teachers put into them. Why not invest in the teachers learning, too? Teachers meet and collaborate with outdoor educators, learning “hands on” ways of maximizing their student’s achievements during the programs they go on. This mutually beneficial collaborative approach allows teachers and outdoor educators to come together to keep the focus on student learning and not on the weather.
This is about helping teachers grow and learn new strategies to enhance student learning in the outdoors. After each activity, teachers and outdoor educators discuss and reflect upon what occurred and the desired outcomes.
Course outcomes: Teachers will understand the history and purpose of outdoor education.
