Teaching and Learning Outdoors: More Than a Space for Science Inquiry

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Saturday 9:50 am Four Seasons Ballroom 4
  In Roundtable Session: Exploring Innovative Teaching Practices: Algorithmic Thinking, Outdoor Learning, and Disrupting Classroom Norms (Table 8)

Abstract

Outdoor experiences for K-12 youth are too often conceptualized as just fun, with little learning benefit. When disciplinary learning is incorporated, science is often emphasized, to the detriment of other relevant disciplines, such as social studies. One reason is that teachers lack professional learning opportunities to make use of nature-based resources for (inter)disciplinary engagement. Here, we use an expanded version of the productive disciplinary engagement framework (productive interdisciplinary engagement) to examine a case study of one teacher and his sixth-grade students participating in a week-long, school-based outdoor learning program. We examine moments of social studies and interdisciplinary inquiry and identify examples of teacher-led productive interdisciplinary inquiry as well as missed opportunities to go deeper or better leverage student sensemaking.

Authors

• Bianca Schamberger, University of Iowa

• Kay Ellen Ramey, University of Iowa