Peer Daugbjerg

Potentials in Udeskole: Inquiry-based Teaching Outside the Classroom

Most research on outdoor education, including the Scandinavian concept udeskole (regular curriculum-based teaching outside the classroom), has focused on pupils’ outcomes, whereas less has focused on teachers’ practices. In this article, we described the occurrence of inquiry-based teaching in udeskole. To analyze practice, we extended the notion of inquiry-based education. Within science and mathematics education, a strong stepwise teaching approach formerly was established, called Inquiry Based Science and Mathematics Education (IBSME), emphasizing pupils’ hypothesis testing, data validation and systematic experimentation. In this study, we broadened the IBSME-concept of inquiry in order to include a more holistic, non-linear teaching approach, but excluding teacher-instructed inquiry. Using this idea, we observed and documented by field notes how five experienced teachers practiced mathematics and science teaching in udeskole at primary level in Denmark. 28 outdoor days were observed. Each day was divided into separate teaching incidents with a distinct start and end. The level of teacher interference and possible choices in each teaching incidents formed the analytic background. We analyzed each of the 71 teaching incidents, and categorized each of them into one of five categories numbered 4-0. The categories designated numbers 4-2 contained the inquiry-based teaching incidents, and the categories designated 1 and 0 were categorized as ‘non-inquiry-based’. They contained teaching incidents where the teacher was instructing the pupils (category 1), and outdoor teaching activities with no sign of inquiry, called training activities (category 0). Our results showed that about half of the analyzed outdoor teaching practice seemed to be inquiry-based, emphasizing pupils’ choice and presenting cognitive challenge. This indicates that the analyzed udeskole had the potential to support an explorative and multifaceted inquiry-based teaching in mathematics and science, paving the way for a child-activating education. These results, albeit limited by the small number of observed teachers, supports the theoretical notion that udeskole is a potential way to strengthen pupils’ approach to inquiry.

What’s in it for me?: – How does a professional development programme meet science teachers’ career expectations?

This chapter presents a case study of the Danish professional development programme (PDP) QUEST that examined how teacher PDPs are optimised to target the individual teachers’ needs for professional development. The relation between teachers’ foreground and the aims of QUEST was investigated in this Danish case, where a balance between top-down and bottom-up processes sought to integrate local and individual intentions of the participating teachers in the overall programme. Thus QUEST was designed to address all teachers’ professional development needs as much as possible to maximise their learning outcomes. But does QUEST actually achieve this? That depends on how you assess outcome! Using theatre play as a metaphor for organising the chapter, we present the text in three acts: A standard systemic assessment approach provides a positive answer concerning teachers’ learning outcomes (act 1). However, using narrative inquiry as an assessment tool provides a different picture of the participating teachers’ individual learning outcomes (act 2). We combine data regarding the teachers’ participation in collaborative elements in the PDP and the teachers’ individual reflections on these elements related to their individual career foregrounds (act 3). Narrative inquiry with the participating teachers revealed (at least) four different career foregrounds: (1) increasingly convergent foreground; (2) mutually enriching but parallel individual and systemic foreground; (3) open-ended foreground, which keeps different career options open; and finally (4) challenged foreground that limits options for fulfilling the objectives of the PDP and makes the participant want to change teaching tasks.

Utvikling av naturvitenskapelig talent og kreativitet - et nordisk perspektiv

De nordiske utdannings- og forskningsministre onsker a fremme kreativitet, innovasjon og entreprenorskap i utdannelsene. Dette var bakgrunnen for at ministrene i april 2009 besluttet ...