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Reconceptualising outdoor adventure education: Activity in search of an appropriate theory.
Abstract
Experiential approaches to learning underpin teaching and learning strategies in outdoor adventure education (OAE). Recent critiques of experiential learning have problematised the individualistic and overly cognitive focus of this approach which creates binaries between experience-reflection and the learner-situation. This paper summarises these critiques and investigates the possibilities made available by understanding OAE from a socio-cultural perspective. Consideration of OAE students as participants in a highly orchestrated community of practice places learning, and observable change, within a socio-cultural frame rather than as primarily a function of cognitive processes within the individual. This position takes seriously the claims made by practitioners of ‘seeing evidence of change’ and researchers who raise questions about the validity of ‘generalised claims’ by placing greater emphasis on the situated nature of learning and acting. Moving beyond conceptions of the learner as an autonomous ‘processor’ of experiences, who is capable of generating context free knowledge, has implications for existing OAE theory and practice.
Type
Journal Article
Type of thesis
Series
Citation
Brown, M. (2009). Reconceptualising outdoor adventure education: Activity in search of an appropriate theory. Australian Journal of Outdoor Education, 13(2), 3-13.
Date
2009
Publisher
Victorian Outdoor Education Association
Degree
Supervisors
Rights
This article has been published in the journal: Australian Journal of Outdoor Education. © Australian Journal of Outdoor Education. Used with permission.