Implementing Garden-Based Learning: What Do Teachers Experience as Factors That Support or Challenge Their Efforts?

• In Event: Poster Session 6
  In Poster Session: STEM Teaching and Learning

Abstract

This study examines factors supporting and challenging 20 teachers who facilitated garden-based learning (GBL) at their elementary school. The researchers conducted semi-structured interviews that engaged teachers in creating a diagram of supports and challenges they encountered as they implemented GBL. Data was analyzed using content-focused grounded theory to identify categories and sub-categories and then structural analysis to identify patterns evident in the diagrams. This study reports the frequency for the categories and sub-categories across all interviews and also characterizes two teachers’ diagram patterns of supports and challenges. These characterizations allow stakeholders to better understand the experiences of the individual teacher and across teachers in order to support the ongoing design of both individual and group GBL learning spaces.

Authors

• Sarah Selmer, West Virginia University

• Melissa J. Luna, West Virginia University

• Jim Rye, West Virginia University