Abstract

Building on authors‟ previous study of teachers‟ intentions and educational objectives for outdoor learning, this paper examine the alignment between teachers‟ predefined objectives and the kinds of knowledge and cognitive processes reflected in the outdoor activities. The Halldén‟s theory of intentional analysis and Bloom‟s revised taxonomy were combined when analysing observations of performed outdoor activities and subsequent semi-structured interviews with nine teachers. Four teaching orientations were reveled: one that values affective and social objectives and promotes activities to understand factual knowledge, another orientation focuses on activities intended to gain procedural knowledge and emphasizes application of practical tasks. The other two teaching orientations primarily focus on cognitive objectives, partly to reinforce conceptual knowledge, partly to deepen understanding or improve strategies to enhance meta-cognitive knowledge. The degree of alignment between intended objectives and performed activity is higher among teachers promoting affective and social goals as well as meta-cognitive and analytical understanding, than teachers who use outdoor activities to mainly reinforce conceptual knowledge. The study shows that there is a range of possible learning goals in outdoor education and that teachers are guided by what they value and how they perceive learning.

Published in

International Journal of Learning, Teaching and Educational Research
2015, Volume: 13, number: 2, pages: 208-230

SLU Authors

• Lidestav, Gun

  • Department of Forest Resource Management, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

UKÄ Subject classification

Learning
Pedagogy


Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/69988