Project Four - Contextual Transfer

Many business’s send work colleagues out on adventure programmes in the hope that when they come back to the work place they work better together, a more cohesive team you could say. But do the skills they have learnt in the outdoors are they transferable in the work place? Not only the work place but students also, what they learn in the outdoors is this transferable in the classroom?

Can i transfer this skill to this situation let me look 

There are a number of definitions for transfer Thorndike and Woodworth, (1901) state that soft skill transfer or the transfer of learning is the transfer of skills from one context to another. Transfer in an outdoor setting is known as the integration of learning from the learning from the adventure programme into the participant’s real life Priest and Gass (1997)

Priest and Gass (1997) state that Transfer can take place in three differ ways.

1.      Specific - An individual learning skills that can be transferred into another setting

2.      Nonspecific - Learning which can then be applied to differed situations

3.      Metaphoric - A certain activity an individual has to face which is out of the norm for an individual but there are underling skill that are similar to everyday tasks

However the research to validate Priest and Gass (1997) work is somewhat lacking. I have obviously adopted soft skills, but I myself have never actually taken part in workplace training or an adventure programme as I have still been in education. I have obviously been facilitating adventure week programmes but I doubt that a week is going to have any major effects. I feel a longer period of time within a programme would aid the transfer. I am rather annoyed I did not in fact think about this transfer of learning when I was on placement, as my placement provides a one month programme for trident school. I believe a follow up on the students that took part in that adventure programme would be highly beneficial to see if transfer did occur into their everyday life. As Sibthorps and Furman 2010 in fact reviewed a 14 day backpacking programme 3 months after the course they found that there was an improvement in the interaction between the groups and the way that they applied themselves and skills to their school work. Also other work by Rhodes & Martin (2014) found that after a 6-12 day programme that 4 months after participants were able to deal with challenging tasks and were positive thinking. Reports from participants also stated that there was positive impact on home life. Colleagues were also expressed that participants who underwent the programme noticed that they were more positive and understood others better.

Learning to abseil someone of a rock will this transfer to everyday life? 

I feel that after watching and facilitating a programme for one month I felt that soft skills within the school as a group had changed, they listened to each other at a better level, there were less arguments when undergoing overnight residentials and they were able to share ideas between each other instead of trying to just get their point across. I believe that undergoing post review 3-4 months after the programme there may have been similarities in results with other findings. I feel overall we will never truly be able to understand the transfer it needs to be tested for a much longer period. My personal belief it is down to the individual if someone applies what they learnt from an adventure programme and taken it into the work place or into school or their everyday life it’s because they have wanted to. They have had a lightbulb movement and have made a choice to maybe be better at communicating with someone, or being more positive about situations etc.  I highly doubt week programme would do that but I do feel longer programmes like a month or regular programs could in fact aid this transfer.  

References:

Priest, S. and Gass, M.A. (1997). Effective Leadership in Adventure Programming. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.

Rhodes, H. M., & Martin, A. J. (2014). Behavior Change After Adventure Education Courses: Do Work Colleagues Notice?. Journal of Experiential Learning, 265-284.

Sibthorp, J., Furman, N., Paisley, K., Gookin, J., & Schumann, S. (2011). Mechanisms of Learning Transfer in Adventure Education: Qualitative results from the NOLS transfer survey. Journal of Experiential Learning, 109-126.

Thorndike, E.L. and Woodworth, R.S. (1901). The influence of improvements in one mental function upon the efficiency of other functions. Psychological Review 8, pp. 247-261.

Project Three - Self-esteem

Within our day to day lives there numerous reasons that impact the way we think about ourselves. This can be our social acceptance around peers, our physical self-appearance or even relationships with family. Self-esteem is the value a person makes of their own personal self-worth. Olsen (2008) highlights that the key point of self-esteem is that it concerns people as individuals and our own personal sense of value and the development this stems from the experiences in person’s life both positive and negative. Self-esteem differs for a number of individuals it has a powerful effect on human cognition, motivation, emotion and behaviour (Cambell & Lavallee, 1993). Self-concept is known as the individual's belief about himself or herself, including the person's attributes and who and what the self is Baumeister (1999).

From working in the outdoors I have been able to see first-hand that adventure experiences can have positive and negative effects on a client or students self-esteem and i felt this was due to how they felt about their own physical self-concept. The domain of physical self-concept refers to all the views a person holds concerning the physical part of him or her self (Fox & Corbin, 1989). Marsh et al. (1994) hierarchical model shows the relationship with self esteem and physical self-concept. Self-esteem is placed at the top with global physical self-concept in the middle and the more specific components relating to physical self-concepts at the base of the model. 

Figure 1: Hierarchical model showing the relationship among self-esteem, global physical self-concept and specific components directly relating to self-concept  Figure 1: Hierarchical model showing the relationship among self-esteem, global physical self-concept and specific components directly relating to self-concept  The demands of adventure activities forces participants to test the components of physical self concept as adventure activities do push ones sport competence, strength and endurance etc. For instance take climbing. To successfully succeed in climbing you would  need to be flexible enough, strong enough and have the right coordination to complete the climb. Gehris, Kress & Swalm (2010) study found that students with in adventure education showed a number of implications with in adventure activates that did in fact impact students self esteem due to a lack of global physical self-concept. One example from the study was a student felt that being overweight in fact hampered her ability to perform simple climbing tasks which made it difficult to succeed and ultimately lead to embarrassment in front of peers. Experiences such as these happened numerous times whilst working on placement year for example clients having to get extra large wet-suits due to being overweight or participants being overweight and physically not being able to do a walk. These are both components relating to physical self concept. I found that decrease in physical ability or how they felt about their appearance would then lower their  physical self-concept to then overall have a negative effect on their self-esteem. This would then have a knock on affect for the remainder of their time in the activity. I myself as a facilitator would tackle this problem by making them succeed in an activity they physically didn't perceive they could do. I think it is vital that as an instructor or facilitator we must create a setting or situation that the outcome of the activity will be positive by setting achievable goals.

References: 

Baumeister, R. F. (Ed.) (1999). The self in social psychology. Philadelphia, PA: Psychology Press (Taylor & Francis).

Campbell, J. D., & Lavallee, L. F. (1993). Who am I? The role of self-concept confusion in understanding the behavior of people with low self-esteem. In Self-esteem (pp. 3-20). Springer US.

Fox, K.R., & Corbin, C.B. (1989). The Physical Self-Perception Profile: Development and preliminary evaluation. Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 11, 408–430.

Gehris, J., Kress, J., & Swalm, R. (2010). Students’ views on physical development and physical self-concept in adventure-physical education. Journal of Teaching in Physical Education, 29(2), 146-166.

Marsh, H.W., Richards, G.E., Johnson, S., Roche, L., & Tremayne, P. (1994). Physical Self-Description Questionnaire: Psychometric properties and a multitrait-multimethod analysis of relations to existing instruments. Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 16,270-305.

O’Connell, T. S. (2001). Self-concept: A study of outdoor adventure education with ado- lescents. Dissertations Abstracts International, 62 

Olsen, J.M., Breckler, S.J., &Wiggins, E.C. (2008). Social Psychology Alive (1st ed.) Canada: Nelson.

Project Two - Experiential Education

Kolb (1984) states that experiential learning is the ability to obtain a meaning from a direct experience or the process where knowledge is shaped through the transformation of experience this knowledge is attained through the combination of grasping and transforming experience. Experiential learning and experimental education are regularly linked together. However they do in fact differ from one another. Experiential learning is the process of learning untaken by an individual whereas experiential education is more interpreted as involvement of education, which is much more linked with concepts of relationships between teacher and student, whilst containing the larger issues like educational structure and objectives (ltin 1999).

Itin (1999) developed a much more extensive model of experimental education. The model shows that the experimental learning process happens for both teacher and student. They are able to share similar experiences in terms of the teaching experience, both student and teacher define this process based upon their own personal reflection.

Figure 1: Davis (1993) The Diamond Model of the Philosophy of Experiential Education

This model I felt was much more relatable to my own personal view on experiential education for the fact that does not it does not dictate or reflect that of a specific strategy but provides a number of approaches that can be used from the model Davis 1993 outlines 5 strategies that should be used with in experiential education one being group and teams (using groups as a means to facilitate learning) I feel that from my experience over placement year I was able to witness and facilitate experiential learning through the use of groups and teams.

I found that predominately experiential learning took place when the task was not out of the comfort zone of the individuals of the group. I found that experiential learning was predominately found in group games focused on team work and group cohesion. Adventure based learning games I would set were often to complete a set task with very little input or advice. This created a base for learning to take place; as experiential learning requires self-initiative an intention to learn and an active phase of learning (Moon, 2004). If a group had completed the group task set whether they achieved or failed at it I was able to discuss deeper aims within the set task. Chickering (1997) believes this process could potentially give them a change of judgment, feelings or skills for themselves as an individual. This kind of learning is not just confined to that of the outdoors, experiential learning can be seen in that of higher academic learning in such areas as finance and business programs Clark & White (2010).

Figure 2: Adventure based learning game known as locked arms

Figure 2: Adventure based learning game known as locked arms

I believe through my experiences that the philosophy and ideals of experimental education can allow outdoor instructors and teachers of all sorts to be able to link different meaningful strategies through approaching educational processes from an experiential learning view it will allow activities to be more linked and provide deeper understanding for both students and client.

References: 

Chickering, A (1977). Experience and Learning. New York: Change Magazine Press. pp. 63.

Clark, J., & White, G. (2010). "Experiential Learning: A Definitive Edge In The Job Market". American Journal Of Business Education, 3(2), 115-118.

Itin, C. M. (1999). Reasserting the Philosophy of Experiential Education as a Vehicle for Change in the 21st Century. The Journal of Experiential Education 22(2), 91-98.  

Kolb, D. A. (1984). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.

Moon, J. (2004). A Handbook of Reflective and Experiential Learning: Theory and Practice. London: Routledge Falmer. pp. 126.

Project One - Other Ways of Learning

Over my placement year I realized there was other ways of creating a greater learning for the clients, most of my learning in the outdoors I have personally done have been the focus on attaining a skill in certain activity’s. Loynes (2003) however concept of adventure experiences were viewed as a hero’s journey, the paper starts of as narrative story of a two day adventure programme written as a heroic journey. The heroic journey delved into the landscape, emotions and the challenges faced and the skills gained within the programme. The authors carried out this research as they felt that there were similarities in an outdoor adventure in comparison to a hero’s journey.

They based the narrative story on Cambell 1968 work on a hero’s journey. Cambell focused on the mythic meta-narrative as he called the hero’s journey. He explains that the central characters respond to the call for adventure through passing from the ordinary world and they cross a threshold facing up to the challenges of the guardians of this world, often with the help of a mentor. I felt this is much related to my experience on placement. I was situated on a small island in New Zealand known as great barrier island clients would leave the ordinary world this would be the mainland and then come to great barrier island to face up to the challenges the island had. Campbell goes on to explain that once individuals have entered the extraordinary world they find themselves out of depth they can’t use the magic others seem to use and have no knowing of who to trust. This is very similar to placement as clients travel on boat to a small island have no idea what to expect. However slowly their early encounters teach them who friends and foes are and are able to learn skills and knowledge as they go. This enables them to resolve the dangers they face and overall achieve the quest. This is much like a week course on great barrier the beginning of the week clients are struggling to learn new skills and are not confident with facing certain activity’s but with the use of companions and a mentor they are able to achieve things they didn’t believe possible and come to the end of the week as a success.

Figure 1: Great Barrier Island the extraordinary world.

Loyne’s (2003) also expresses that outdoor adventure is a learning environment that is frequently allied with experiential education one description that Loyne’s gives for outdoor learning for outdoor spaces is physical space, they define physical space as this space is understood as a real landscape rich in natural and cultural history. Gaining knowledge about this stored landscape is the primary aim. Knowledge of this story is understood as giving power to the knower. I felt this statement related to my placement year as working on such a remote island it was bursting with species, landscapes, cultures and also a vast amount of history behind it. It was a great place as a facilitator to be able to learn myself about the island and then being able to give this knowledge over to clients. I felt that students that would undergo this week would take away more than just skills from activity’s they would take back knowledge of species of the island, the story’s behind the island and the different cultures they met whilst spending their time here. I hope that this type of knowledge gained is just as important as skills gained and when going back to friends and family they talk about the physical space they spent their week. I will carry on to use this technique of providing a greater knowledge of the surroundings not just the activity alone as I feel it will be much more beneficial for clients interest within an adventure programme. 

Future readings:

Linda Allin & Barbara Humberstone, (2010) Introducing ‘Journey(s)’ in adventure and outdoor learning research. Journal of Adventure Education & Outdoor Learning 10(2), pages 71-75.

Smelser, N.J. 2009. The odyssey experience: Physical, social, psychological and spiritual journeys, Berkely: University of California Press.

Stewart, A. 2008. Whose place, whose history? Outdoor environmental education pedagogy as ‘reading’ the landscape.Journal of Adventure Education and Outdoor Learning, 8(2): 79–98.

References:

Campbell, J. (2008). The hero with a thousand faces (Vol. 17). New World Library.

Loynes, C. (2003). Narratives of Agency: The hero’s journey as a construct for personal development through outdoor adventure. In Bewegungs-und körperorientierte Ansätze in der Sozialen Arbeit (pp. 133-143). VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften.