Increased attention to student engagement and active learning strategies have become particularly relevant in today's classroom environments. These approaches are also considered to be meaningful when teaching "net generation" students who have different styles and expectations. This study attempts to address these challenges through the…

Outdoor activities in residential programs aim to promote personal growth and to develop a healthy personality in troubled youth for whom other interventions have been unsuccessful. In the Netherlands, experiential outdoor programs consist of activities such as mountain climbing and rapelling, flat and white water canoeing, biking, sailing,…

Some children hold the belief that insects and spiders are all mere nuisances because they have never had opportunities to observe, study, and learn to appreciate how these animals live and carry out their purposes in life. Studying insects and spiders fosters children's natural curiosity about the world around them and encourages them to use…

This book presents group activities that use metaphors to enhance learning for participants in adventure-based programs. The first chapter provides an overview of approaches to facilitating adventure experiences, including letting the experience speak for itself, speaking for the experience, debriefing the experience, directly frontloading the…

This paper explores the relevancy of apprenticeships for professional training. While often neglected in current educational theory, apprenticeship training is common in the arts and in the mentoring and supervision of professionals. The apprenticeship model may provide solutions for some of the problems of the current educational system such as…

Novices in programming face many problems affecting their learning process and programming success. Learning to program includes using the programming environment, learning a programming language's syntax and semantics, understanding a problem and translating it into an executable plan, developing algorithms and programs, and testing and debugging…

The question of how the postmodern would have an impact on the everyday concerns of adult educators can be approached through analysis of three fundamental and persistent concerns evident in the literature of adult education pedagogy. First, the idea of autonomous or self-directed learning is firmly entrenched in contemporary thinking about adult…

Seven Oaks School, a high school in Winnipeg (Canada) recently conducted a followup study of its graduates using a unique approach. High school seniors helped develop the structured interview instrument and carried out the research. As it gathered important information to help the school district in its planning, the study provided students with…

This proceedings contains 20 papers from the 1995 International Conference on Outdoor Recreation and Education. The papers include guidelines for various aspects of outdoor leadership and materials relevant to program development and administration in outdoor recreation, outdoor education, and adventure therapy and education. Papers are:…

This report explains the need for viable and effective partnerships between K-12 schools and institutions of higher education involving service and service-learning, and discusses the State of Washington's experience in this area. It is stated that both rural and urban schools have found service and service-learning to be effective methods of…

This guide was developed to assist 4-H club leaders in implementing a youth leadership skills project. Leadership skills are categorized into three levels: personal skills, skills working within groups, and skills leading groups. The first chapter discusses leadership and the value of teaching leadership skills to youth. The leadership life skill…

Educational practices often concentrate on rote knowledge of facts while neglecting problem solving skills. When students are encouraged to think critically, analyze, and question they are far better prepared to deal with the future. Classroom debate can be an effective method in all subject areas to achieve this end, helping the student to move…

This paper describes an activity-based program that teaches students in grades 4-12 about the importance of Maine agriculture in their lives. Specifically, the goal is to increase student awareness of how the foods they eat are planted, harvested, and processed. The emphasis is on crops grown in Maine such as potatoes, broccoli, peas, blueberries,…

This learning packet, one in a group of eight, was developed by the Crowders Mountain State Park in North Carolina for Grades 5-7 to introduce students to the geology of the Kings Mountain range in the park. Loose-leaf pages are presented in nine sections that contain: (1) introductions to the North Carolina State Park System, the Crowders…

The objective of this investigation was to review impact evaluations related to activity based elementary science programs. Of particular focus is the measurement of process skills attainment. The report presents a survey of current impact evaluation procedure for process-oriented programs as described by recent literature, identification of…