Teacher Education: Learning to Use the Outdoors.

Overview & Synopsis

After an attempt to initiate a viable Outdoor Education program in the early 1960s was abandoned, during the early 1970s the Faculty of Education at the University of Western Ontario created an optional, 20-hour credit course in Outdoor Education for teacher education majors, which now attracts about 200 students per year. Objectives for the Teacher Outdoor Education Courses are: to see and use the educational possibilities in a common natural or man-made area; to conduct competently a 2-hour session with one's peers in an area of choice; to participate as a teacher-assistant at one of the Outdoor Education centres, or one week at the Toronto Island Outdoor Natural Science School; to practice-teach for one or two weeks at an Outdoor Education Centre; to assist individual teachers in planning and conducting their outdoor education activities; to participate in a Weekend Residential Outdoor Education Workshop; and to have one's basic interest and philosophy for Outdoor Education deepened. Various methods are used to implement the objectives. Students participate in planning and scheduling course content. Class assignments promote the course objectives. Following the narrative section, a partial listing and brief description of the sessions offered is presented, including some subject-oriented and some multi-disciplinary topics for the K-13 spectrum. (CM)