Reflection Post 5

This week in EDCI 336 we had a class by Rich McHugh. Unlike the majority of our online Zoom classes this week’s class involved a lot of thinking and group work. Rich had us come up with questions, topics, areas of inquiry etc. surrounding the topic of education. Then once everyone contributed an idea we voted on which topic we found most interesting and which we would want to dive into deeper. Rich then creative breakout rooms for the most liked topics.

I chose to join the conversation about nature education and also hands on learning. The biggest question our group faced was what are the benefits of these types of teaching and how accessible are they for teachers. When it came to the topic of nature based learning many of us in the group had either had a school which they attended or worked at which had placed an importance on nature education. Last year, I volunteered at Hillcrest Elementary School in Victoria, BC and they had an outdoor classroom being built for a teacher who had recently passed away and always loved spending time outside with her class. In my time at the school my “mentor” teacher would often take her class outside into their back forest where they had log benches set up and they would incorporate the forest into their lessons. We did one on map making, ecosystems, nest building and many more. You could easily tell students were engaged and just simply happy to be out of the classroom. That was the biggest positive impact that we all agreed on in our discussion; nature based learning takes students into a new learning environment. Some students really struggle in a regular classroom and often a change of scenery and some fresh air can do wonders. This can also be a great way to incorporate First Peoples principles and Indigenous education into your classroom while working directly with the land you’re on. One possible obstacle with nature based learning is that not all schools have a safe area to do so. Hillcrest was very lucky and have access to their small forest, but more intercity schools don’t have that luxury and often just going outside can be too noisy and distracting for some. There’s opportunities to venture off school grounds but field trips cost money and time from parents to accompany.

The main focus of our conversation was nature based learning but we did touch on hands on learning. One interesting point that I took away from it was that as you get older in the school system, hands on learning isn’t just not used as much but it’s often discouraged. For example when we were younger we were taught tricks for math using our fingers, e.g. multiplications of 9, but as you get older teachers don’t want you using these helpful tricks and what you to memorize them. I can remember instances when during tests students would get penalized if seen using their fingers. Though this is less hands on learning and more a helpful tool, it still raised questions in our discussion about why students aren’t allowed to use tools to better understand. Hands on learning in my opinion has been the way I learn the best and I think we should continue it as far in the education system as we possibly can, especially up through high school.