Finnish student teachers’ ideas align with reforms promoting sustainability and outdoor learning Recent Finnish educational reforms have advocated for sustainability and learning outside the classroom. Consequently, schools and teacher education programs have shown increased interest in outdoor learning. This study examined student teachers’ ideas of outdoor education that are relevant to phenomenon-based learning—a holistic pedagogical approach in which students integrate knowledge and skills from a range of disciplines through experiential learning. 46 student teachers in a sustainability and outdoor education master’s program completed a survey before the program started to document their preliminary ideas of outdoor education. The goal was to use this data to develop a new program based on the student teachers’ ideas.
For the study, teacher education faculty administered an open-ended questionnaire to student teachers pursuing a master’s degree in Sustainability and Outdoor Education prior to them taking outdoor education courses or gaining practical teaching experience. The questionnaire included two prompts about outdoor learning and expanded learning environments: (1) What do you think outdoor education should be at school (activities and contents)? (2) What kind of out-of-school learning environments or learning spaces are? 46 students returned questionnaires, which three faculty analyzed by grouping similar responses into thematic categories.
The data analysis grouped student teachers’ responses into three categories: learning environment, pedagogical activities, and interdisciplinary learning. The student teachers were more concerned with the learning environment than any other topic. Their responses recognized the value of Informal learning environments (e.g. museums, science centers, school facilities, corridors, library, excursions), Nature (e.g. field and park, mire, river, wilderness), Surrounding (e.g. nearby forest, school yard, garden), and Non-formal learning environments (e.g. bus, factory, city hall, rest home, swimming hall, beach, internet, movies). Student teachers’ ideas of outdoor education pedagogy included Pupil-centered learning (e.g. group work, inquiry, playful learning), Practical orientation (hiking, trip, gardening, camp fire, species identification), Locality (e.g. nearby nature, place, nature into classroom), and Experiential (e.g. experiment, positive presence in nature, and relaxing). Participants also recognized the importance of interdisciplinary learning with responses focused on Interdisciplinary subjects, Permeable outdoor education, and Sustainability.
These results pointed towards Finnish student teachers being positively predisposed to outdoor education. According to the student teachers, the main spaces for learning outdoors were informal out-of-school settings, such as museums and science centers, as well as non-formal learning environments. Contrary to Finnish reform agendas, the student teachers did not connect technology and digitalized learning environments with outdoor learning. Their pedagogical ideas also provided a good starting point for phenomenal-based learning and outdoor learning—emphases of both Finnish reforms and the master’s program in Sustainability and Outdoor Education—and sometimes indicated that the student teachers associated environmental issues with outdoor education. In a context where the Finnish education system supports cross-curricular learning, the student teachers sought to integrate sustainability issues, such climate change, into inter-disciplinary learning experiences. Overall, the students who chose to pursue a master’s degree in Sustainability and Outdoor Education entered the program with views largely compatible with the current Finnish curriculum reform movement. The authors did not detail how they used this data to redesign the program to make it more responsive to students' ideas and interests.
The Bottom Line