Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

Investigates theories and issues associated with developing educational programs and practices in various educational contexts. Addresses the development of new programs and their implementation in schools and other educational settings.

COURSE DETAILS:

Meeting Dates:
May 4th & 5th
July 3rd-6th inclusive
Location: Katzie and Kwantlen Territories; Stave Lake Watershed; Malcolm Knapp Research Forest & BCIT Woodlots Maple Ridge (the July dates are “on-trail” with overnights spent at a base-camp)  

This course is designed to be an experience in and of Place-conscious and Ecological Practice (PEP) while also providing an opportunity for the teacher-learners to step out of the experience and reflect upon the process. The goal is that this will allow teacher-learners to get a “feel” for PEP and to expand their understandings of the philosophical, relational, pedagogical, and curricular work involved in its creation. Situated in the teacher’s “home” teaching locales with most, if not all, of the instructional time spent outside, this learning experience will entail “real world” encounters with the pragmatics of this form of teaching and an extended opportunity to build comfort therein. Teacher-Learners will be asked to do a series of activities focused on: deepening their relationship to and knowledge of these places (e.g. microsites, flora and fauna identification/story telling/food sourcing/etc., etc.), building their curricular tools (e.g. planned lessons, emergent lesson planning, etc.), and expanding their pragmatic skills (e.g. developing safety protocols, creating local operating procedures, risk management, and basic outdoor skills).

Maple Ridge MEd Program
This program is a response to growing interest amongst educators, parents, and students in place-conscious, nature-based, ecological learning. It will support teachers in providing frameworks, strategies, and approaches to integrate nature-based learning in their practice. Teachers will be introduced to the philosophical underpinnings of place-conscious learning, and will be encouraged to develop ongoing relationship with specific places and communities as a foundation for personal and professional practice. The ethics and values embodied in these relationships will sustain the development of civic responsibility in the context of environmental/ sustainability issues. As a key content course for the nature-based component of the program this course is designed to challenge and support the teachers into building upon their current understandings and practices with regard to nature but also grow their thinking and pedagogies. This course is structured so that the teachers are able to experience PEP class as students and then become reflective practitioners as they examine their own offerings, those of their fellow students, as well as the course as a whole. Teachers will be invited to deepen their sense of nature as a place for learning, as a means for learning, and as a partner in learning.

COURSE-LEVEL EDUCATIONAL GOALS:

This course has three key educational goals:
A)   To assist the students in the ongoing practice of engaging in, learning from, and building relationship with the natural world. Significant research and experience in the field has shown that it is important for teachers who are wanting to expand their place-conscious and ecological pedagogical practice develop and deepen their own connections to and knowledges of the natural world.
B)   To assist the teachers in developing their pedagogical practices in relation to the natural world. This component is divided into two sub-categories. The first has to do with learning the pragmatics of spending more time outside with students. This will include but likely not limited to: risk management, safety skills and protocols, paperwork (e.g. Emergency Action Plans, Local Operating Policies and Procedures, etc.), on site assessments, etc. The second sub-category will focus on the development of curriculum and implementation of pedagogy in outdoor settings. This will include but likely not limited to developing skills in areas such as: place-based education, ecological practices, emergent learning, integrated curricula, local flora and fauna awareness, outdoor education, nature as co-teacher pedagogy, etc.
C)   To assist the teachers in developing their nature-based philosophies of education. This component will focus on examining and re-examining deeper philosophical beliefs and ways of “doing education” that help and/or hinder each specific teacher’s own nature-based practice. This work will likely involve rethinking and reworking concepts, and resulting practices that arise therefrom, such as: the nature of knowledge and meaning-making, the implications for assessment, the concept of relationality, the changing ways of being, the challenges of crossing the human/nature divide, the difficulties of negotiating cultural change, etc.  

This course’s focus is on deepening our nature-based practices as educators and as a result there are three key topics each coupled with a series of guiding questions.
A)   The place itself. This course will help to develop and deepen our relationships with the place we live and work. Key questions might include: how well do I know who and what live here? How they interact? And, what they are able to offer to my practice and my students? B)   The differences between place-conscious and ecological teaching and learning and what is currently known, explicitly and implicitly, as public education. Key questions are likely to revolve around careful analysis of everything that is taken for granted both in the larger culture of public education and within each student’s own practices as educator. What is present and absent? What is education? How does knowledge work? What needs to change, and what supports do I need, if I am going to truly embrace the idea that nature might be a co-teacher?
C)   Preparing for place-conscious and ecological teaching. Key questions might include: What are my own skills and knowings with regard to nature and the place I teach? How might these grow? What are the needs and requirements of my district, my principal, my parents, and my students with regard to PEP? And, how does taking PEP seriously influence and affect my practice, my curriculum, and the concepts that undergird these?

Grading

Materials

MATERIALS + SUPPLIES:

A comprehensive gear list and other information for our time in the hills will be provided on the first weekend.

REQUIRED READING:

RECOMMENDED READING: