HPR 443

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Outdoor Leader competencies

• HPR 443

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Overview

• (1) knowledge and skills
• (2) educational and psychological foundations
• (3) outdoor education foundations
• (4) environmental understandings
• (5) instructional methodologies
• (6) learning environment
• (7) assessment

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Knowledge and skills

• Generic skills
• Concerning types of outdoor leadership skills,
  these areas are comprised of skills applicable to
  all adventure experiences such as weather
  interpretation, first aid, trip planning, and
  appropriate level of performance.
• Meta skills
• Concerning types of outdoor leadership skills,
  this area combines hard and soft skills into a
  workable design for example, leadership style,
  problem-solving, decision-making skills.

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Professionalism

• Know your topic
• Have the skills
• Learn from formal Instruction
• Learn from informal instruction
• Know your participants

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Professional Responsibilities

• Planning Organizing
• Plan the work/work the plan
• Communicate with students
• Equipment (condition, amounts, fit, location)
• Materials (to aid in instruction pictures,
  handouts, drawings, CDs/DVDs, twigs, etc)
• Site knowledge
• Risk Mgt (before, during after)

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Personal Presentation
Dress appropriately Arrive early Start on
time Begin to develop a rapport with students as
soon as you meet them Communicate personally Set
expectations Clarify whats going to
happen Rules Equipment check bring extras just
in case
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Educational and psychological foundations

• Clear goals
• Appropriate activities
• Curriculum materials
• Instructional strategies

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outdoor education foundations

• Involves a structured experience for students
• Usually involving a challenge (possibly including
  an element of risk)
• A period of reflection to help students derive
  meaning from the experience
• An assessment activity
• Skilled outdoor educators can use outdoor
  experiences to achieve many general education
  objectives in subject areas such as the arts,
  language, mathematics, science, and social studies

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environmental understandings

• Major concepts
• how natural systems work and how social systems
  interact with natural systems.
• Regarding natural systems, teachers should be
  able to communicate and apply major ecological
  concepts.
• Individual Existing as a distinct entity
  separate individual drops of rain.
• Species a class of individuals or objects
  grouped by virtue of their common attributes and
  assigned a common name a division subordinate to
  a genus.
• Population All the organisms that constitute a
  specific group or occur in a specified habitat
• Community A group of plants and animals living
  and interacting with one another in a specific
  region under relatively similar environmental
  conditions.

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• Ecosystem a system formed by the interaction of
  a community of organisms with their physical
  environment
• Interdependence a reciprocal relation between
  interdependent entities (objects or individuals
  or groups)
• Niche The function or position of an organism
  or population within an ecological community.
• Adaption An alteration or adjustment in
  structure or habits, often hereditary, by which a
  species or individual improves its condition in
  relationship to its environment.
• Homeostasis The ability or tendency of an
  organism or cell to maintain internal equilibrium
  by adjusting its physiological processes.

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Ethics Leave No Trace http//www.lnt.org/programs/
lnt7/index.html
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instructional methodologies

• Outdoor education addresses learning objectives
  through guided direct experience in the outdoors,
  using the natural and built environments as
  resource materials.
• Such experiences in the outdoors provide
  three-dimensional reality to what is taught in
  the classroom and make possible depths of
  understanding and appreciation that may not be
  possible indoors.

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learning environment

• Outdoor education can occur in any outdoor
  setting, ranging from a school yard in an
  industrial neighborhood to a remote wilderness
  setting
• Capable outdoor educators create a safe place for
  learning--a community of learners
• Such a setting promotes appreciation,
  exploration, and discovery, and provides an
  intellectually open, stimulating, and exciting
  environment.
• In such an environment, students pursue their own
  ideas individually and in groups.
• Teachers also guide students in self-assessment,
  collaborative work, and preparation of
  presentations of accomplished work.
• Capable outdoor educators model certain habits of
  mind, including curiosity, excitement, wonder,
  and imagination.

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Assessment

• Assessments should be ongoing.
• It's best to use a variety of strategies, such as
  observing and listening to students as they work,
  discussing students' ideas and understandings,
  and asking students questions.