Adventure Learning 101

Adventure Learning Do you ever wish you could take students on real-world adventures? Do you wish you could connect students with field experts? Do you often do problem-based or inquiry-based activities with your students? Do you have good Internet and web delivery technologies available to you? Have you ever considered adventure learning?

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Adventure learning is a relatively new twist in distance education and online or blended learning. Using technology, students collaborate with their teachers and experts in the field to solve a problem through an authentic adventure. It has elements of applied experiential learning, problem-based learning, and inquiry-based learning. Students examine live field work and field notes and reflect on theory and practice to present solutions. There are seven key principles to the adventure learning framework: 1.Curriculum with researched, problem-based learning outcomes 2.Collaboration and interaction between experts, teachers, and students 3.Internet delivery 4.Rich media content from the field 5.Relationship between adventure and curriculum 6.Sound pedagogical guidelines of curriculum and online delivery 7.Adventure-based (Doering, 2006)

Variations None.

Examples Use your imagination. What adventure could your students go on? What would be an appropriate adventure for your students? Only you know what would be authentic to your field of study, your curriculum, and your students. To get started, consider these ideas: Visual Arts •Industrial design factory •TV studio •Musical road tour •Location scouting for a feature film Health & Community Studies •Animal shelter •Overseas development project •EMS ride along •Personal training Science & Technology •Underwater welding project •Construction site 39

•Water quality testing •Video game development Business Administration •Stock Exchange •Supply chain warehouse •Legal office •Advertising firm Humanities & Social Sciences •Library •Museum •Cultural event •Community centre

Merits The power of adventure learning is the connection between the curriculum and the field. It is a practical approach to bringing the adventure to the classroom. Not only does the adventure match the curriculum, but students solve a real-world problem. Therefore, it is a contemporary approach to learning. Since the adventure is somewhat unpredictable, there is an element of suspense throughout that is highly motivating.

Practical. The adventure and web-based experiences via chat, virtual tours, movies, images, audio, and global positioning system (GPS) software (Doering, 2006), can replace traditional field trips, virtual field trips, or outdoor education (Veletsianos & Kleanthous, 2009) that would be impractical or impossible to experience locally. For example, we could not take our veterinarian students to the Toronto Metro Zoo every class. However, we could have watched the panda cam that ran continuously on the baby panda at the zoo. Anyone could log in and see the panda, read the field notes, and share their reflections. Learning vicariously through experts in the field, can be a very close simulation to the real adventure.

Problem-Based. Adventure learning is much richer than a simple virtual field trip. Students have a real time connection with the field or field expert. They also have a real-problem to solve. It provides a great opportunity to explore global citizenship, cultural diversity, and environmental sustainability. Imagine students around the world in the same fields of study sharing local experiences with each other and collaborating in real time via chat, web conference, video, audio, image, and text to solve real problems in the field.

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Contemporary. While much of the ready made curriculum for adventure learning is geared towards K-12 programs, there exists potential to do action research on adventure learning in higher education. The adventure can be as a simple as a trip to a local landmark or as complex as dog sledding in the Arctic. Think of some of the hit reality TV series that chronicle participants as they journey through a challenge. There is venture capitalism on Dragon’s Den, catching criminals on COPS, renovation disasters on Holmes on Homes, geo-cashing on the Amazing Race, glass blowing on Blown Away, or make up artistry on Glow Up. What authentic adventure could you design for your students?

Motivational. Having a hook, motivates students to learn (Doering, Scharber, Riedel, & Miller, 2010; Jensen, 2005). Anticipation is greater than the reward itself (Jensen, 2005).

The element of surprise is even further rewarding. For example, students were absolutely enamoured with the “Timber Tales” of the cute and cuddly sled dogs in the GoNorth! dog sledding adventure (Doering, Scharber, Riedel, & Miller, 2010). The hook could be the problem to solve, the connection with the field or the field expert, or the suspense of the outcome of the adventure itself.

Challenges To connect with experts and the field, we need to use web-based technologies. Depending on resources, this can be an obstacle or barrier to adventure learning. An adventure that fails to connect with the curriculum will not likely motivate students. It can take several months of planning to make an adventure experience for your students. This investment pays off best with a problem-based learning rather than rote learning curriculum.

High Quality Internet Delivery. One obvious challenge with adventure learning is the availability and quality of technology. Remote areas like the Arctic require satellite Internet.

Wifi can be spotty anywhere. Live video and web conferencing work best with hi-speed Internet and bandwidth. Likewise, a lack of hi-speed Internet can hamper the ability to upload large image, video, or audio files (Doering, Miller, & Veletsianos, 2008).

Curriculum Connection. Another challenge is making sure that the adventure experience meets the curriculum standards. Connection to the adventure should be authentic, collaborative, and well-designed.(Doering, Scharber, Riedel, & Miller, 2010). Students should “experience, explore, and expand” their knowledge (Doering, Miller, & Veletsianos, 2008). Since planning and participation can be quite time-consuming, you would need to make sure that the experience met several or all the course or program outcomes. If it

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does, it can be a very engaging approach to teaching applied experiential learning; on the other hand, It would not serve a course built heavily on content memorization.

Planning. You will need to plan early in your curriculum to coordinate adventure learning.

First, you need to make connections with field experts who are willing to share their journeys with your students. Second, you need to schedule dates, times, and milestones for the adventures. For example, Denali National Park, in Alaska, offers distance learning sessions with a Park Ranger, Denali: A Wild Classroom. Finally, your expert may need to get waivers for image, audio, and video release as well as confidentiality or copyright.

Instructional Design Use a backwards design approach. First, start with your learning outcomes. Second, create your assessments. Third, plan your instructional activities. Finally, choose a technology to enhance the lesson.

Design. Consider your curriculum; look carefully at your accreditation standards, graduate attributes, program learning outcomes, course learning outcomes, and lesson learning outcomes. Will adventure learning fulfill the learning outcomes? How will you evaluate what the students learn through an adventure? What technologies will you and your students need to learn in order to experience the adventure? Will an adventure enhance the learning experience?

Develop. Browse the Internet for sponsored adventures to join. An example of adventure learning include Jason Learning (Doering, 2006). As mentioned, there may be high quality TV series that chronicle the types of activities your students may encounter in their future careers. Likewise, there may be a local event or activity to observe.

Create your own adventure learning activity. Coordinate with experts in the field. Select web-based technologies to connect with these explorers. This might be simple open source technologies like Skype to more complex technologies like web conferencing. You may want students to share their own field placement learning experiences to document and share with others; of course, students would need to acquire waivers to use images, audio, or video that impacted the confidentiality of participants or copyright.

Deliver. Decide what students will do before, during, and after the adventure. Before an adventure, students might research a concept, interview an expert, or locate a region using GPS. While on their adventure, students can ask guided questions. After the adventure, 42

students can propose solutions to the problems encountered in the filed. The adventure should be authentic, active, and applied.

Technology You and your experts will need connect via Internet media. Your field experts may post daily blogs with text, image, and video. Your class may correspond with the adventurers through email or social media. They may connect live via chat, web chat, video chat, or web conferencing. They may create a wiki to share, collaborate, and create.

References Doering, A. (2006). Adventure learning: Transformative hybrid online education. Distance Education, 27(2), p.197-215.

Doering, A., Miller, C., & Veletsianos, G. (2008). Adventure learning: Educational, social, and technological affordances for collaborative hybrid distance education. Quarterly Review of Distance Education, 9(3), p.249-265.

Doering, A., Scharber, C., Riedel, E., & Miller, C. (2010). “Timber for president�: Adventure learning and motivation. Journal of Interactive Learning Research, 21(4), p.483-513.

Jensen, E. (2005). Teaching with the brain in mind. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision in Curriculum Development.

Veletsianos, G. & Kleanthous, I. (2009). A review of adventure learning. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 10(6), p.84-105.

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