Forest Schools

       "Forest School is an inspirational process that offers ALL learners regular opportunities to achieve and develop confidence and self-esteem, through hands on learning experiences in a local woodland or natural environment with trees. Forest School is a specialised approach that sits within and complements the wider context of outdoor and woodland learning." (Forest School Association - FSA)

       The concept of forest schools was developed and adapted in England from the original idea implemented in the 50's in Sweden and other Scandinavian countries.

Forest schools is an innovative education approach, a symbiosis between playing and learning. The philosophy of this concept is to encourage and to inspire everyone trough positive experiences outdoors. 

       Forest schools have been demonstrating a special success with children of all ages that visit the same forest regularly and that, trough games/playing have the opportunity to learn about the natural environment that surround them, to handle the risks whose such activities have and, above all, to use their own initiative to solve problems and to cooperate with the others.

       There is a general believe that it is impossible to dissociate social interaction from environmental interaction. Therefore, it is important to create behaviors to the transmission of a good ethical posture. There are several strategies and objectives which can be applied in forest schools:

- To proportionate a solid experience and observation of nature to the child, allied to the search of beauty, creativity, and art, in order to construct freely its personality. This process helps the child to develop aptitudes, and to have tools and knowledge to, in the future, being able to take well informed decisions, exercising civic responsibilities and rights whilst a community member.

- To create several activities of personal and social growth in order to help the autonomy and the development of the child.

- To take the maximum advantage of the exterior space. The forest, the garden and the vegetable garden, are the places where children can experience the natural elements, during all the seasons of the year, allowing thus to deeply know the flora and fauna, and at the same time to develop a sensitivity to biodiversity.

- To encourage the consume fruit and vegetables ( some integrated in the vegetable garden, grown, kept and collected by the children) in order to learn to give value and to respect the rhythms of nature.

- To establish learning framed by story telling, tales and songs, that describe the natural cycles and that develop throughout the year.

- To perform daily activities, with the use of miscellaneous natural materials, in order to the child being able to perceive its potential. Some examples of the materials: crayons, sculpture wax, clay, water colors, wood, bread flour, wool and other natural fibers.

- To integrate children in the separation of garbage, making them to experience in an effective way the concept of recycling, based on the idea that “garbage” can also bear fruit.

- To understand that the connection children have with nature does not take them apart from the observation of urban spaces, and thus to encourage the respect for public spaces.

- To implement several activities linked to the search of self-knowledge and autonomy.

References

O' Brien, L. 2009. Learning outdoors:the Forest School approach. Education Three to Thirteen, [e-journal] 37(1). Available trough: Swetswise database [Accessed 3 Febuary 2014].

Institute for Outdoor Learning. Forest School Association, 2012 [online]. Available at: http://www.outdoor-learning.org/Default.aspx?tabid=336 [Accessed 3 Febuary 2014].

What is the Montessori Method?

       Montessori Method is the name given to the set of theories, practices and didactic materials created by Maria Montessori. The Montessori Method is constituted by four pillars: one of them is the way of seeing the development of a child, and the other three are points of view on education as a support to the life of the child in developing.

       According to Maria Montessori, the most important point of the method is, not so much its materials or its practices, but the possibility created by the use of the method to free the true nature of the individual, in order to be observed, understood and, in order to education being developed basing on the evolution of the child, and not the other way round.

       Montessori wrote that development happens in “sensitive periods”, in a way that in each stage of life is predominantly certain specific characteristics and sensitivities. Without leaving out of consideration the “individual” in each child. Montessori can trace general profiles of behavior and possibilities of apprenticeship for age range, based in years of observation.

       A most complete observation of development allows the use of most adequate resources to each phase and, of course, to each child to its moment, since phases are not stagnant and do not have exact dates to start and finish.

Thus, the Montessori's six education pillars are:

1. Self-Education

2. Knowledge as science

3. Cosmic Education

5. Prepared Environment

5. Prepared Adult

6. Balanced Child

       Self- Education is the innate capacity the child has to learn. With the desire to absorb all the world around and understand it, the child explores, investigates and researches it. The Montessori Method proportionate the adequate environment and the most interesting materials in order to the child being able to develop by its own efforts, in its own pace and following its interests.

       Knowledge as Science is the way of understanding the child and the educative process accordingly to Montessori, and defended by today's science. In the Montessori method, teachers use the scientific method of observations, hypothesis and theories to understand the best way to teach each child and to identify the child 's daily work.

       Cosmic Education is the best way of helping the to understand the world. Accordingly, the educator shall give knowledge to the child in an organized matter – cosmos means order in opposition to chaos, stimulating the imagination of the child and evidencing that everything in the universe has its task and that humans must be conscious of its role in maintaining and keep the world better.

       Prepared Environment is the place where the develops its autonomy and understands its freedom in Montessori schools. The prepared environment is constructed to the child attending to its psychological and biological needs. In prepared environments there are furniture of an adequate size and developing materials to be freely used by the child.

       Prepared Adult is the name given, in Montessori, to the professional that assists the child in its complete development. That adult shall know, scientifically, the stages of childhood development, and by means of observation and of the mastering of educative tools of proven efficiency, to guide the child in its blossom, so that it would be in the best possible conditions.

       Balanced Child is any child in its natural development. By the correct use of the environment and with the help of the Prepared Adult, children express innate characteristics. Among other, it can be find the love for silence, for work and, for order. All children are born with these characteristics that are better developed between 0 and 6 years old.

       All the principles of the Montessori Method shall work in union, so that the child can develop in a complete and balanced way. It is necessary to understand the child to identify in her the signs of efficiency of what is being given to her. According to Montessori (1909), “Truly our social life is too often only the darkening and the death of the natural life that is in us. These methods tend to guard that spiritual fire within man, to keep his real nature unspoiled and to set it free from the oppressive and degrading yoke of society. It is a pedagogical method informed by the high concept of Immanuel-Kant: “perfect art returns to nature”.”

       The Montessori method has been used in schools all over the world, from the foundation phase to secondary. Furthermore, The Montessori method is used in special needs schools, psycho-pedagogy clinics and care homes across the world. Some clinics use the Montessori method to treat alzheimer and dementia, and some entrepreneurship initiatives apply some principles of the method to develop their businesses.

 

References

Feez, S. 2011. Montessori and Early Childhood. London: Sage Publications Ltd.

Montessori, M. 2009. The Montessori Method. USA: BN Publishing.

Montessori Schools Association, 2008. Guide to the Early Years of the Foundation Stage in Montessori settings. [pdf] London: Montessori St. Nicolas Charity. Available at:

<http://www.montessori.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0020/50582/guide-to-early-years.pdf> [Accessed 29 January 2014].

      

       In this blog I will be exploring one of the four recognised learning styles: learning preferences. Bartlet and Burton (2012, p.234) describe learning preferences as: the “environmental preferences for learning, such as place, light and atmosphere”. Of course, all the aspects of the learning preferences cannot be covered in a single piece of writing. However, emphasis is going to be put on the external environment, more precisely, the place in which learning happens. When dealing with learning techniques, there are two basic factors which are generally given most importance: What is learned and how it is learned. This article is going to look at a third, less covered factor, learning contexts. Learning contexts refers to the psychological conditions in which learning happens.

       “I sometimes talk of the context as being the learner's environment, and online, the digital environment. If we want to be complete, we can talk about three major environments: the learner's external environment (classroom, working space, in-person coaches, etc.), internal environment (previous beliefs, thoughts, hopes, etc.) and digital environment.” (Downes)

     Research suggests that there is a strong relation between the context of learning (information acquisition) and the context of evocation of those conditions. In a study, it was identified that information acquired inside water, with a diving suit, was more easily evoked inside the sea than outside the sea. Thorndike (1911, cited in Hayes, 1995, p.852) argues that "a given behaviour is likely to be repeated if it produces a pleasant effect". Suggesting that people learn better in a pleasant context. Therefore, according to the "law of effect", what is learned in such a determined context, will be evoked more precisely in a similar context than in a completely different context. In a way, during learning, the context triggers the learning information. It is like going to the library and finding none or just a few books or, getting there and it is too noisy. Contextual triggers for learning will not be prone to happen in such an environment.    

     The diving suit analogy provided would not be the most practical one. However, that study can bring important applications to the creation of a study routine: students learn easily when tested in the same environment in which they have studied. With the purpose of identifying the power of context in learning, a different form of research was undertaken. In this study, students were divided in two groups. The first group memorized several lists of words, each list in different rooms. The second group memorized the same lists of words, but all in the same room. When both groups were tested in completely different rooms, the first group obtained a most satisfactory result. The hypothesis created to explain this phenomenon was that the first group, after studying in several different rooms, created a greater variety of contextual triggers, promoting a greater flexibility during the evocation of learning. Thus, when studying in different and diverse contexts, these students became less dependent on the learning context.

       How can the effect of the context be used in study sessions? Some possibilities are listed below.

a) Practise in the same environment in which the test will occur. That way during the test, there will be the same triggers created during the learning sessions. For instance, is recommended that students have some sessions of study in the same environment that the test will occur. These recommendations can also be valid to other learning contexts. Imagine that you need to do a public presentation (i.e., poetry, discourses, a theatre play...). In these cases, when practising in the same place for the realization of the presentation, the process of learning will be optimized.

b) When not possible to use the first strategy, try to practise in the most similar environment possible. For instance, if you need to give a lecture, try a room with the same similarities of the lecture room. That way similar contextual triggers are going to be present on the day of the real lecture.

c) Use the contextual effect during the test. If a blank occurs in a determined question, close your eyes and imagine that you are in the same environment as the information you are searching was studied. Thus, greater are the chances of some trigger to surge and solve the problem.

d) When the environmental conditions are different from the ones you are used to, try to immunise against the contextual changes, When practising in many different and diverse contexts, the dependence to the learning context would be much less.

References

Hayes, N., 1995. Foundations of Psychology: An Introduction Text. London: Routledge.

Bartlett, S. and Burton, D., 2012. Introduction to Education Studies. 3rd ed.  London:Sage Publications Ltd.

Downes, Stephen, 2004. What is a Learning Context? Downes.ca, [blog] 11 November. Available at: <http://www.downes.ca/post/18> [Accessed 3 January 2014].