Introducing a fifth pedagogy: experience‐based strategies for facilitating learning in natural environments

Abstract

Educators have identified four categories of ‘productive pedagogies’ that are considered to lead to authentic student engagement and learning in the classroom. This study was designed to explore and extend these pedagogies in the context of learning in natural environments, in particular, through the programmes of Queensland environmental education centres. In‐depth interview and observation data were collected from students, classroom teachers and centre teachers who had participated in 12 environmental education programmes across Queensland, in order to identify the strategies that are most effective in facilitating learning in the natural environment. A fifth productive pedagogy category, ‘experience‐based learning’, is proposed. Experience‐based learning is particularly important in addressing students’ environmental attitudes and actions. The implications for the delivery of environmental education programmes both within and outside the classroom are discussed.

Keywords:

• pedagogy
• school students
• experiential learning
• learning in natural environments

Notes

1. All of the ‘learning events’, including knowledge‐based, attitudinal and behavioural events, together constitute the ‘learning outcomes’. These are different again from the ‘learning activities’, which are the structured activities provided as components of the environmental education programme.

2. The mix of learning activities provided in each programme was decided by centre staff, and each programme was designed for a specific range of age levels.

3. It should be noted that changes in actual behaviours were not able to be measured in this study. This is a measure of behavioural intentions, but it is labelled ‘Behaviour’ to facilitate the presentation of results.