How can outdoor learning be used as a tool for building engaging, humanizing, and equitable classrooms, particularly with students who are marginalized by traditional schooling or the outdoor education industry?
Revision Education’s Get Outside Fellowship provides Title I Oakland high school teachers with paid training, mentorship and resources to explore this question. From October through December 2021, these teachers will have the opportunity to rethink their classes and classrooms to include rigorous, engaging, and equitable outdoor learning.
Revision Education’s Get Outside Fellowship provides Title I Oakland high school teachers with paid training, mentorship and resources to explore this question. From October through December 2021, these teachers will have the opportunity to rethink their classes and classrooms to include rigorous, engaging, and equitable outdoor learning.
What Will the Fellowship Include?
We recognize that we are still in the midst of the pandemic. We are planning for our intensive to be in person, and ask that participants are vaccinated and wear a mask when indoors. However, if California’s or Oakland’s regulations no longer permit it, we will move the intensive online.
Please contact Livana at admin@revisioneducation.org with questions.
- The kick-off intensive—this is the meat of the fellowship. During this time, fellows will:
- Explore their own ideas around educational equity, conceptions of culturally-responsive teaching, and goals for what they want students to get out of the classes
- Examine the research behind outdoor learning and how it can be used as a tool for educational equity
- Identify which of their routines, structures, and curriculum components could be effectively implemented in outdoor spaces, and look at examples for how to do so
- Create an action plan for where, when, and how they can bring their students outside
- Build community and connections with other educators in the Bay Area
- Follow-up cohort meetings—these are spaces for sharing best practices, receiving feedback, and continuing to build community.
- Before each of these meetings, fellows will film themselves and/or their class facilitating a routine, structure, or curriculum component outdoors.
- Fellows will give and receive feedback from facilitators and other fellows on their outdoor teaching
- Fellows will continue to build off of this feedback to improve their practice, culminating in a final video of a routine, structure, or curriculum component of their choice that will be housed as training material for future Get Outside Fellows.
We recognize that we are still in the midst of the pandemic. We are planning for our intensive to be in person, and ask that participants are vaccinated and wear a mask when indoors. However, if California’s or Oakland’s regulations no longer permit it, we will move the intensive online.
Please contact Livana at admin@revisioneducation.org with questions.
FAQ
Why outdoor learning is important? Why should teachers want to do it more?
Why Is Outdoor Learning Important? Why Should Teachers Do It More?
Research has proven that simply bringing students outdoors consistently has undeniable universal benefits. It can decrease student discipline issues and absenteeism, reduce depression and symptoms of ADD, build students’ resilience, and increase academic performance, memory, and creativity. If facilitated intentionally, school-based outdoor experiences can also increase students’ engagement with curriculum and sense of belonging in classroom and school communities, particularly for students who don’t normally find success in school. The pandemic has led to significant learning loss in California and exacerbated the state’s youth mental health crisis. Experts agree that the key to addressing both crises is ensuring that schools provide community to students, build their ability to cope with adversity, and reduce stress. Taking students outdoors is one essential tool in addressing these issues.
Visit our Research Page for more information about the research on outdoor learning’s benefits.
Research has proven that simply bringing students outdoors consistently has undeniable universal benefits. It can decrease student discipline issues and absenteeism, reduce depression and symptoms of ADD, build students’ resilience, and increase academic performance, memory, and creativity. If facilitated intentionally, school-based outdoor experiences can also increase students’ engagement with curriculum and sense of belonging in classroom and school communities, particularly for students who don’t normally find success in school. The pandemic has led to significant learning loss in California and exacerbated the state’s youth mental health crisis. Experts agree that the key to addressing both crises is ensuring that schools provide community to students, build their ability to cope with adversity, and reduce stress. Taking students outdoors is one essential tool in addressing these issues.
Visit our Research Page for more information about the research on outdoor learning’s benefits.
What will the fellowship include?
To facilitate a change in mindset and promote the equitable implementation of outdoor learning, our program provides a paid fellowship for Title I high school teachers called Get Outside during the fall semester. It includes a weekend intensive, resources, and monthly follow up training for teachers to consistently move their academic classes outdoors. The initial two day intensive will build a cohort who supports and acts as sounding boards for one another; show them resources on classroom management, setup, and curriculum outdoors; and discuss culturally-responsive outdoor teaching and dismantling white, male, elitist notions of outdoor learning. In the three follow up meetings, teachers will present and discuss progress on action plans for moving their classrooms outdoors.
If I’m a teacher who doesn’t live in Oakland, can I apply?
At this time, we are giving priority to those who are high school teachers at a Title I public or charter school in the Oakland area. However, if any of the questions above apply to you, we still encourage you to go ahead and fill out the application to the fellowship, and we will keep you informed about available space!
IF I AM A TEACHER BUT NOT AT A TITLE I SCHOOL, CAN I APPLY?
At this time, we are giving priority to those who are high school teachers at a Title I public or charter school in the Oakland area. However, if any of the questions above apply to you, we still encourage you to go ahead and fill out the application to the fellowship, and we will keep you informed about available space!
IF I AM A SCHOOL ADMINISTRATOR, CAN I APPLY?
At this time, we are giving priority to those who are high school teachers at a Title I public or charter school in the Oakland area. However, if any of the questions above apply to you, we still encourage you to go ahead and fill out the application to the fellowship, and we will keep you informed about available space!
IF I DON’T TEACH HIGH SCHOOL, CAN I APPLY?
At this time, we are giving priority to those who are high school teachers at a Title I public or charter school in the Oakland area. However, if any of the questions above apply to you, we still encourage you to go ahead and fill out the application to the fellowship, and we will keep you informed about available space!
IF I AM WORKING AT A HIGH SCHOOL BUT AM NOT PRESENTLY A CLASSROOM TEACHER, CAN I APPLY?
At this time, we are giving priority to those who are high school teachers at a Title I public or charter school in the Oakland area. However, if any of the questions above apply to you, we still encourage you to go ahead and fill out the application to the fellowship, and we will keep you informed about available space!