OUTDOOR LEARNING
How Outdoor Learning can support and extend learning inside the classroom
T
his month, in our annual look at outdoor learning, Education Today hears from Alex Alves, currently teaching Outdoor Learning and Forest School at Fairfield Preparatory School, Loughborough, on the importance of taking your class outside. Alex also runs her own business, Outdoor Learning Made Easy Ltd.
Monday morning is here again. You’re rushing to get everything set up for the day despite feeling slightly tired from your weekend’s events. You grab the text book you used last year and prepare to deliver your lesson with the same format, in your familiar classroom. You’ve read about the benefits of Outdoor Learning, but the lesson went perfectly well last year inside the classroom. The sky outside looks like it’s clouding over, and you certainly don’t have the time to fit anything extra into your timetable; this term’s objectives are going to be a struggle to cover already. Sound familiar? So why venture outdoors?
Outdoor Learning is a quick and sure-fire way of improving children’s learning across the whole curriculum, and it doesn’t necessarily require extra timetable space. The same objectives and topics you have planned to cover inside, can be easily taken to a more stimulating and resourceful environment outside. Moreover, cross curricular learning is plentiful; lesson objectives are consolidated and extended across all subjects in just one lesson. Creative thinking from your students requires a sprinkle of creative thinking from their teachers. Benefits will not only seen by pupils, but by teachers alike. Articles are popping up detailing teacher stress levels. Surely it’s time to venture outside and reap the benefits of outdoor learning for both the pupils and for yourself, the teacher.
Children need the chance to relate ideas to real-life concepts, in order to develop higher order thinking skills and understanding. Pupils are becoming all too reliant on being spoon-fed information, and often lack the confidence to
question it. Pupils are becoming ‘beings’ who simply regurgitate facts they don’t truly understand. They need the chance to practically test the theories you teach them, in the real-world outside the classroom. Then they will develop the skills to advance their learning, which can feed into improved attainment and understanding back inside the classroom. Outside learning allows children to come up with problem solving skills independently. They test their ideas and have the chance to re-test them and improve them if they don’t work first time. Moreover, there is often no need for teachers to spend hours on a Sunday afternoon trying to come up with an innovative way of taking learning outside. When outside, sometimes all the children need is an open question and they will come up with their own theories and solutions to problems. There is certainly no excuse for a Monday full of meaningless facts and figures being regurgitated from a text book.
Teachers often spend many hours a week marking children’s work in books with helpful comments and tips, which seldom get read. If comments are read, the moment to correct or extend any learning has often passed. With outdoor learning, feedback is instant and improvements are made there and then. Skills and knowledge become embedded and understood. Experiential learning outside enables children to organise their thinking and understand why things worked out or why they didn’t. Theories and concepts become meaningful and valuable.
Being outside enables us to connect with all five senses, as the outside environment is rich with resources and stimulation. This enables us to be more creative and fires up our imagination. How can we expect children to have the creativity to achieve higher level writing skills, when all they often experience is the four walls of a classroom? A simple sensory walk and free time exploring the outdoors throughout the seasons can often be all our pupils need to enlighten their minds and awaken their senses.
What proportion of the day do your pupils spend inside sitting still? A lack of physical development can be related to poor coordination,
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www.education-today.co.uk May 2017
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