Outdoor Leader competencies

1. Outdoor Leader competencies HPR 443

2. 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

3. 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.

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

5. 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, CD’s/DVD’s, twigs, etc) • Site knowledge • Risk Mgt (before, during & after)

6. 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 what’s going to happen • Rules • Equipment check – bring extras just in case

7. Educational and psychological foundations • Clear goals • Appropriate activities • Curriculum materials • Instructional strategies

8. 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

9. 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.

10. 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.

11. Ethics • Leave No Trace http://www.lnt.org/programs/lnt7/index.html

12. 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.

13. 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.

14. 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.