Using EDCamp To Build Community

I found the EDCamp group conversation model to be super beneficial and a great way to connect over common thoughts or ideas. My topic of choice was how can we get students more engaged with the outdoors and it was really exciting and surprising to see how many other student-teachers are having similar thoughts about using outdoor spaces. Our group was so large that we decided to split into two to make it a bit easier to share ideas, and even then there wasn’t quite enough time. It would have been nice to switch halfway through to the second group and listen to their thoughts, but we were wrapped up in conversations that were important to have. It was exciting to find this community of educators within our cohort that are also interested in connecting to the outdoors in whatever way they see fit for their classrooms.

We talked about a handful of things, but the most prominent were discussions around the different ways to engage with the outdoors as a class; movement or walk breaks, starting the class outside, connecting curricular content to outdoor spaces, or simply teaching content outside were all different ways we could connect students with the land. We talked about how sometimes when students have a movement break during class times they are less likely to refocus on the content when they’re back from the break. In order to prevent this potential outcome (though I also believe it’s fine to take breaks from classwork because school is way more than content alone) you could present the student or class a guided question related to their work to get them processing the question while having their movement break.

The following youtube video titled Overview of Outdoor Learning has some awesome tips and tricks for educators who would like logistical and simple steps for how to actually bring your students outside. This can work for all ages, but is especially suitable for secondary students.

Overall, I’m more excited than ever to try outdoor learning methods. I think it will be challenging to implement during practicums, but once on a contract with my own classroom it will be way easier to make theories a reality.

Here’s another great resource that has lesson ideas for specific subjects and strategies to bring students outdoors: