Teachers' Intentions for Outdoor Learning: A Characterisation of Teachers' Objectives and Actions

Abstract

Building on authors' previous study of teachers' intentions and
educational objectives for outdoor learning, this paper examine the alignment
between teachers' predefined objectives and the kinds of knowledge and
cognitive processes reflected in the outdoor activities. The Halldén's theory
of intentional analysis and Bloom's revised taxonomy were combined when
analysing observations of performed outdoor activities and subsequent semi-structured                                                                                               interviews with nine teachers. Four teaching orientations were
reveled: one that values affective and social objectives and promotes activities
to understand factual knowledge, another orientation focuses on activities
intended to gain procedural knowledge and emphasizes application of
practical tasks. The other two teaching orientations primarily focus on
cognitive objectives, partly to reinforce conceptual knowledge, partly to
deepen understanding or improve strategies to enhance meta-cognitive
knowledge. The degree of alignment between intended objectives and
performed activity is higher among teachers promoting affective and social
goals as well as meta-cognitive and analytical understanding, than teachers
who use outdoor activities to mainly reinforce conceptual knowledge. The
study shows that there is a range of possible learning goals in outdoor
education and that teachers are guided by what they value and how they
perceive learning.