Living, Learning, and Growing through Outdoor and Experiential

Education Courses
Lessons Learned Along the Way
Gerald Laronde, Nipissing University, Canada
Michelann Parr, Nipissing University, Canada

Abstract: This paper focuses on pre-service teacher development through engagement in outdoor and experiential education
learning activities. The learning activities described throughout this paper are similar to those that teachers plan for their
students. This approach supports our guiding principles that we should never ask our students to do something we are not
willing to do or have not previously experienced, that learning takes place through meaningful engagement in real-world
contexts, and that knowing requires personal reflection. Student reflections demonstrate that hands-on learning experiences
build not only self-awareness but awareness of students and the value of outdoor and experiential education in a regular
classroom. These key learnings are often difficult but not impossible to measure and/or assess. Through personal particip-
ation, active engagement, and critical reflection, teachers come to realize the challenges faced by their students, the demands
(intellectual, emotional, and spiritual) placed on their students, and the relationship between trust, risk-taking, and confidence,
all of which are pre-requisites for full learner engagement.

Keywords: Constructivism, Reflection, Active Learning, Knowledge, Trust, Risk-Taking

to describe our insights, reflections, and theories, in

Each of us have our own discoveries and re-
discoveries in life – profound personal experi-
ences which renew our inner spirit, re-awaken
in us a desire to know and understand other
cultures, and rekindle a sense of wonder in the
natural world (Henley, 1989, p. 15).
HIS PAPER WILL describe the ongoing
addition to those of our students. This critical reflec-
tion and interaction continues to shape our course as
each new group of students arrives with fresh ideas
and unique perspectives. This paper, therefore, rep-
resents one interwoven story with many perspectives,
recognizing that no two experiences in outdoor and
experiential education will be alike and therefore

T development and dialogue about an outdoor

and experiential education option course that
students take in addition to their mandatory
pre-service program in the Faculty of Education at
cannot be compared or analysed through scientific
methods.

Nipissing University, North Bay Ontario. Out of a
possible 720 potential participants, there are on aver-
age 30 students in the course each year. The course
is facilitated by four instructors who instruct the
course in addition to their regular teaching load.
Our intention is not to present a research-based
paper but instead to share our story and talk about
our key learnings about contexts for learning, self-
awareness, student awareness, the value of outdoor
and experiential education in teacher development,
and issues that need to be considered. Research in
the field of experiential education appears to suffer
from practical, logistical, and paradigmatic issues
(Galloway & Goldenberg, 2004), likely due to the
integration into diverse fields (e.g., outdoor educa-
tion, educational psychology, reflective practice) and
its potential for curricular integration. It is for this
reason that we have opted to use a narrative approach
Context
Four years ago, a group of eight interested faculty
sat down to develop a course that would focus on
outdoor and experiential education. We reviewed
texts, articles, and papers searching for essential
features that we could build into our course. We
brainstormed long lists of course expectations, im-
ages of the learner, images of the teaching-learning
process, all of which we were ready and willing to
incorporate into our course. We began to explore the
types of scenarios (Martin, Franc, & Zounková,
2004) that would address all of our expectations and
we truly grappled with assessment: “How do you
measure students’ learning in outdoor and experien-
tial education courses?” Armed with many questions,
we set out to participate in an adventure based pro-
gram including a high ropes course. Over the course
of the weekend, we learned immense amounts about
ourselves as risk takers, the need to be fully engaged,

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF LEARNING,

VOLUME 12, NUMBER 9, 2005/2006
http://www.Learning-Journal.com, ISSN 1447-9494 (print), 1447-9540 (online)
© Common Ground, Gerald Laronde, Michelann Parr, All Rights Reserved, Permissions: cg-support@commongroundpublishing.com
168 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF LEARNING, VOLUME 12
the need to be challenged, the need to collaborate,
the need to work within a safe and supportive envir-
onment, but also the need for choice. We realized
that these were the types of insights that we wanted
our students to have, key learnings that could only
be gained through ‘lived experience.’ Although each
of these learnings had a value that could be carried
into the classroom, we were no closer to answering
that driving question of “How do you measure stu-
dents’ learning?”
We decided that perhaps a weekend more focused
on ‘content’ would bring us closer to answering our
question. The second weekend was planned for an
ecology centre where we would participate in all
sorts of winter and heritage activities (snowshoeing,
paddle-making, tree study). Many of the activities
covered key learning expectations in alternate set-
tings, from a hands-on real life perspective. Again,
after this weekend, we realized that these were
components that were critical and certainly this
learning was easier to measure, but was it enough
given what we had experienced on the first weekend?
We returned to our paper planning and tried to
capture all of what we had learned on paper and tried
to make decisions about which weekend would serve
our purposes better. We could not make that value
judgment, so we decided to go with both weekends,
anticipating that students would provide insight in
the first year, thinking that perhaps we would provide
them with a choice of Weekend 1 or Weekend 2 (to
alleviate cost which for us with a paramount issue).
As we designed our first course outline, we incor-
porated both weekends, as well as a range of learning
experiences that would be situated at the faculty.
That first year, we began with a formal course outline
and stuck to it (we even assigned numeric grades
and made extensive use of rubrics). What we have
learned over the years, though, is that courses de-
signed for outdoor and experiential education should
never be written in stone - they are collaborative
ventures that are negotiated between the students,
the instructors, and the environment. They are parti-
cipation oriented and all students must feel safe and
free from judgment and evaluation in order to fully
participate (we’re pass/fail now). The need to trust,
feel safe, and be supported are the greatest insights
and pieces of learning that we can share with our
students.
We, therefore, begin with a statement of our
guiding principles and then planned activities that
will help our students to accept these principles for
themselves.
• We should not ask our students to do something
we are not willing to do or have not previously
experienced;
• True learning and true knowing come from being
engaged in meaningful and authentic real-world
contexts;
• True learning and true knowing emerge as a res-
ult of reflecting on our actions.
The question of how you measure student learning
as well as these principles represent the conceptual
framework for the remainder of this paper; our obser-
vations as course instructors will be interspersed with
theory and student reflection.
Guiding Principle 1: We should not ask
our students to do something we are not
willing to do or have not previously
experienced
We personally recognized the importance of this
principle in our first weekend of implementation
with students. As one younger student stood looking
up at the high ropes, she said, “There’s no way I’m
going up there until one of the profs goes first.” So
up we went, and to this day, we have fully engaged
in all learning tasks right alongside our students.
Although we recognized the importance of our
spoken words, we had not fully acknowledged the
importance of our actions.
One of the primary purposes of our course is to
broaden the perspective of what it means to be a
teacher; our thoughts are that in order to be a teacher,
you must fully understand what it means to be a
learner and the importance of risk-taking in the
teaching-learning process (Kolb, 1984; Vygotsky,
1986). In order to understand a risk-taker, it is often
necessary to become a risk-taker who embarks on a
journey which is far more than simply an intellectual
or academic path. Experiential education enables us
to explore further who we are as learners and teachers
as well as how and what we teach. The following
student teacher, after participating in an adventure-
based weekend, speaks to the importance of particip-
ation in outdoor and experiential education opportun-
ities from a developing teacher perspective:
Excerpt 1:
I have thought long and hard about my experi-
ences last weekend and how I have grown as a
person and a teacher from them. I have chosen
to work in outdoor education because I believe
strongly in the value of experiencing the things
that you are learning. I also believe that people
need to begin to make more of a connection
with the things around them, particularly those
that have been here way longer than us, like the
nature around us. I love the outdoors and feel
comfortable and at home outside. I reflect best
under a tree in the woods, which is why I am

writing this sitting in the scrub bush off of
Parking Lot 10. The words that I wanted to say
hit me and this was the closest spot to nature at
the moment.
This past weekend was not what I was expect-
ing. I feel pretty comfortable and confident in
my role as an outdoor educator. I guess you
could say it’s in my comfort zone. However,
the activities of this past weekend pushed me
to explore things well outside of my comfort
zone and as [the instructor] put it verging, if not
in “my panic zone”1.
Guiding Principle 2: True learning and
true knowing come from being engaged
in meaningful and authentic real-world
contexts
As instructors, it is important that this course be an
extension of real life in natural contexts that is reflec-
ted in and reflective of the inner landscape of a
teacher (Palmer, 1998). To this end, our students
learn about risk-taking, trust, and belief in a way that
allows them to understand better themselves, their
students, and the natural world (Priest, 1986; 1993).
This takes place in real life contexts in addition to
traditional classroom settings, and we expect our
student teachers to be engaged in meaningful and
authentic tasks (Kolb, 1984). These tasks operate
within a continuum of support from modelling to
independence, allowing students to continually work
in their comfort zones (Vygotsky, 1986: zone of
proximal development). We combine two weekends
in outdoor and experiential education facilities (run
by qualified instructors) with on-campus sessions
and Web Communication Technology (WebCT).
Over the years, we have increased the number of on-
campus sessions to reflect students’ desires and
needs. As instructors, we fully participate in the
activities planned for our students, modelling,
demonstrating, supporting, and guiding where neces-
sary. As we engage our students in these activities,
we consistently return them to regular classroom
connections and curricular integration with the ex-
pectation that they will bring these key learnings into
their own classrooms someday.
Fall Weekend: Dare to be You!
The fall weekend is held at a local outdoor and ex-
periential education facility oriented toward adven-
ture education. The theme for the weekend was ‘Dare
to be You’ (named by the students) with many oppor-
tunities for challenge by choice. Students engage in
trust-building exercises, short group and personal
1
Releases have been secured for student work including summaries, reflections, and games to be cited anonymously in publications
related to Outdoor and Experiential Education.
GERALD LARONDE, MICHELANN PARR 169
initiative tasks, low organization games, a low ropes
course, and rock/pole/cargo net climbing designed
to prepare them for the final challenge, which is a
high ropes course. They are engaged continuously
in team-building, personal development, and reflec-
tion oriented tasks as well as making connections to
their developing sense of teacher. Students discuss
issues of ‘what it all means in practice’ including the
utility of games in our programs and foundations for
risk-taking in the classroom. Risk-taking requires a
safe emotional and physical environment which
progresses through the phases of a) icebreaking,
warm-up, energizing; b) goal setting; c) trust-build-
ing; d) teamwork; e) problem-solving; ultimately
arriving at f) debriefing and reflection. Games engage
students at both personal and group levels and
provide ample opportunities for communication,
leadership, decision-making, risk-taking, and conflict
resolution. For some students, challenge courses such
as these privilege them with a “momentary insight”
into areas that they have never encountered, for ex-
ample, feelings of vulnerability, fear, inadequacy
(Carlson & McKenna, 2000).
Excerpt 2:
Another important lesson I learned was the im-
portance of establishing an atmosphere in my
classroom in which I build up trust with my
students as a teacher as well as among the stu-
dents themselves. To create such an environ-
ment will allow students to feel free and secure
to make mistakes which will inevitably increase
the learning, because much learning takes place
through making mistakes.
Winter Weekend: Dare to Brave the Cold
The winter weekend is held in the middle of January
at a local provincial park, Samuel de Champlain
Provincial Park, steeped in Canadian and Voyageur
history. It is appropriately oriented toward experien-
tial education and grounded in history and environ-
mentally appropriate outdoor education. Students
are engaged in a range of activities that that are
linked to the Ontario Curriculum. These activities
help them to experience and appreciate life in the
north, life as a voyageur, and life in the outdoors
which include paddle making, wolf-howls, fire-
making, building and sleeping in quinzhees (snow
houses), learning about the global information system
(GIS), global positioning system (GPS) and geo-
caching, snow-shoeing and cross-country skiing,
forest management and tree study, drumming, fur
trading games, and learning/experiencing the life of
a voyageur.
170 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF LEARNING, VOLUME 12
Student teacher journal reflections demonstrate
the importance of these types of activities in their
own personal formation and realization that history,
ecology, technology, and physical education can be
learned simultaneously through well-selected and
well-planned activities outside the door of the
classroom.
Excerpt 3:
I find it very difficult to pinpoint the most
valuable activities from the weekend. In fact, I
can see myself incorporating all of the week-
end’s activities into my classroom. A personal
favourite was the hike along the river on Sat-
urday night. The view is practically indescrib-
able. I remember a brief moment where I totally
felt immersed in nature’s beauty, and all of
life’s stressors escaped my mind, leaving me at
ease staring off into the dark night. It is that
exact feeling that I want each of my students to
experience. Outdoor education is highly under-
rated and it will be my goal to incorporate it as
much as possible in my classroom.
Critical Reflection
The issues that arise as a result of our weekend field
trips are those of resources: the availability of facil-
ities inside or outside of the school, qualified instruct-
ors, and financial, all of which will be issues that our
students have to face in the regular classroom. Are
some students denied access to these critical learning
experiences for financial reasons? How can we incor-
porate these types of trust-building and risk-taking
experiences within the context of our classroom and
schools as opposed to outside facilities? How can
we ensure that regular classroom teachers are aware
of outdoor and experiential education strategies and
methodologies? These became a discussion points
not only for us, as instructors, but with our students
as well. In response to our students’ concerns about
these issues, in the second year of our course we
doubled the number of on-campus sessions to include
more connections to the regular classroom.
On-Campus Sessions
On-campus sessions are further divided into in-class
sessions and out-of-class sessions. In-class sessions
are intended to present the theory behind outdoor
and experiential education, technical knowledge, and
skills that can be facilitated in a classroom (e.g.,
front-end loading weekends, discussion of journal
writing, field trip procedures and safety, GPS certi-
fication, GIS training, and activities facilitated by
students). Out-of-class sessions are designed to use
the natural surroundings of the campus and encour-
age students to see the opportunities and potential
experiences right in front of them.
Nipissing is a small university in Northern
Ontario. We have the benefit of a large pond, an ex-
tensive trail system, and creeks/waterfalls within
reach. Out-of-class sessions are a reflection of the
season and the changes in the natural environment
and include back-pocket games, integrating language,
science, applying GPS, social gatherings in the great
outdoors. Many of these sessions involved students
in the same types of activities they might implement
in their own classroom one day. Our focus is to
provide meaningful, logical, and authentic connec-
tions that extend our belief of living and experiencing
as rehearsal for writing, learning, and transforming.
One fall connection involves the reading of The
Fall of Freddie the Leaf by Leo Buscaglia outdoors
under the canopy of autumn leaves, an experience
of the forest from a five senses perspective, ulti-
mately culminating in the creation of five senses
riddles, such as the following:
Excerpt 4:
Aged and decayed I stand,
My scales flake off
And I return to the land.
Weathered and moss-covered
I will not give in,
My base is unsturdy,
My bark has worn thin.
Around me the ground is covered with leaves,
They sing me to sleep as they dance in the
breeze.
I may not be tasty but I reek of the woods.
I am…
a stump
Critical Reflection
We are still exploring the structure of the on-campus
sessions, trying to balance theory and practice in a
way that is responsive to the needs of the course and
the needs of the students. This past year was our most
successful year; students indicated that these sessions
brought outdoor and experiential education experi-
ences closer to the classroom and helped them to
make connections between insights and awareness
gained through the weekends and their experiences
in the classroom. Modelling these connections as
instructors is critical and does not leave out-of-class
experiences dangling and irrelevant.
Guiding Principle 3: True knowing and
true learning emerge as a result of
reflection on our actions
Students are required to complete four journal entries
as evidence of their learning/growth throughout the

course. Reflections are structured using a retell, re-
late, reflect framework (Swartz & Bone, 1995):
• Retell: Recount key learning experiences from
the weekend including participation activities,
group discussions, personal thoughts, and inform-
ation gathered
• Relate: Connect key learning experiences in class
to assigned readings, research, experience in
placements, and curriculum expectations;
• Reflect: Consider how this awareness, key
learning, and insight shape who you will become
as a teacher. How might you bring these learning
experiences into your classroom?
Journals are posted to WebCT which is a web-
based communication forum that allows them to
share their work with their peers; it is not publicly
accessible therefore student work remains within the
context of the course. Students post their reflections
after each weekend and are encouraged to read, re-
flect, and comment on other students’ experiences.
In traditional courses, a written reflection is only
read by the teacher. Sharing reflections on WebCT
enables all students to see how others perceive the
same experiences and the growth that results from
these perceptions and their subsequent discussion.
Without expectation, students are compelled to re-
spond to their peers, making further connections and
developing a learning community. The following
reflections provide examples from two students with
different goals for the same activity; each yielded
different results and therefore unique learning exper-
iences.
Excerpt 5:
This weekend, I set a goal to get to the top of
the platform. In my head, though, I was sure I
could get further than that. I thought I’d be able
to do actual elements in the ropes course. I
definitely thought I could do it when I saw
others doing it and having fun and NOT dying.
Excerpt 6:
I have always believed that unless you push
yourself out of your comfort zone, you cannot
reach your full growing potential. There were
two main ways that I challenged myself during
the weekend. On Saturday I asked (the instruct-
or) how I might be able to push myself harder
on the climbing wall. She suggested that I try
it blindfolded, to which I thought she was jok-
ing. But she wasn’t… So there I was, with
(fellow students) bandana around my eyes,
reaching blindly upward for the next hold. Un-
like many people, it was not the height that left
me anxious, but rather increased opportunity to
fail and look silly in front of my peers.
GERALD LARONDE, MICHELANN PARR 171
Critical Reflection
As we originally planned our course, we made the
assumption that the students who enrolled in the
course would likely be novices, looking for addition-
al information about outdoor and experiential educa-
tion. We neglected to consider the group of students
who had extensive experience in the field and wanted
the additional teacher qualification. We realized that
we needed to reconsider the diversity of our students’
experiences; some of them arrived at the course with
such extensive experiences in outdoor and experien-
tial education that they had met our course expecta-
tions before they even started – how could we pos-
sibly measure the growth of these students when they
had already met our course expectations. With these
particular students, we grappled with their initial
question of “What’s in it for me?” Our best answer
to this question was to tell our students that “As we
live our lives, we each collect different experiences
and different insights; some are indicative of struggle
and some of positive experiences. Regardless of our
experiences though, we must own these experiences
and then learn to sort the ‘truths’ from the ‘myths
and misconceptions.’ This course will facilitate your
examination of previous experience, attitudes, and
values and the impact that this will have on your
development as a teacher and how you will interact
with students in the classroom.”
During the first year, we attempted to measure
student learning through traditional grading practices
and rubrics. We quickly realized though that a focus
on marks and ‘getting a good grade’ often interfered
with risk taking and reflection on a variety of dimen-
sions. We came to realize that it was difficult to
measure growth using a numeric, quantitative scale.
For this reason, we changed our grading criteria to
pass/fail reflecting an emphasis on participation,
active engagement, and growth, and our questions
regarding student learning shifted from attempts to
‘measure’ to questions of assessing growth, value,
and awareness. We realized that we could not value
one student’s risk taking, challenge, or insight over
another, but what we could do was look at how they
wove those insights into their philosophies of teach-
ing and learning.
At this point in our own critical reflection, we have
realized that perhaps it is unnecessary to measure
student learning but we should instead seek to invest-
igate how our student teachers’ lives are shaped by
our course, how the course reinforces the value of
outdoor and experiential education, and how the
course facilitates self-awareness and therefore,
awareness of students.
172 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF LEARNING, VOLUME 12
How has the course shaped the student
teachers' lives in a meaningful way?
Our students’ journal entries tell us that their lives
have been influenced in a meaningful way; they have
fully realized the importance of recognizing their
own subjectivities, pushing themselves to the edge
of their comfort zones, and making connections with
learners. They have learned that in order to become
a teacher, they must first explore their own inner
landscapes through the intellectual, emotional, and
spiritual paths. As thoughts, reactions, mispercep-
tions, feelings, attitudes, and understandings are ex-
plored, they come closer to answering the question
of “Who is the self that teaches?” (Palmer, 1998, p.
7). These paths will be interwoven into their selves
as teachers; they affect how and what we learn, and
therefore how and what we teach learners.
By spiritual I mean the diverse ways we answer
the heart’s longing to be connected with the
largeness of life – a longing that animates love
and work, especially the work called teaching.
By intellectual I mean the way we think about
teaching – the form and content of our concepts
of how people know and learn, of the nature of
our students and our subjects. By emotional I
mean the way we and our students feel as we
teach and learn – feelings that can either enlarge
or diminish the exchange between us (Palmer,
1998, p.5).
How has the course either developed or
reinforced the value of outdoor and
experiential education for students in
regular classrooms?
At the onset of the course and then again at the end
of the course, student teachers are asked to articulate
their thoughts and beliefs about outdoor and experi-
ential education. Their journals include the following
conceptualizations:
Excerpt 7:
Outdoor and experiential education is the pro-
cess of exposing people to situations where they
interact with the world around them and learn
about aspects of the environment, of themselves
and learn from their responses to it. It would
also entail learning from interactions with others
and their responses. This all occurs primarily
not through books.
Excerpt 8:
Teaching outdoors brings life to the classroom.
In a world today, when so much of the lives of
humans centres around viewing television,
movies, video games and computer screens, it
is easy to forget about all that the outdoors has
to offer.
Although not formal definitions of outdoor and ex-
periential education, what these students tell us is
that they recognize the capacity of outdoor and ex-
periential education to transcend theory and practice
as well as integrate a variety of curricular perspect-
ives.
How has the course altered
self-understanding and understanding
of learners?
Our students share with us the value of experiences
gained through outdoor and experiential courses.
They recognize that pushing themselves on a high
ropes course might enable them to take similar risks
in a classroom environment even though there are
no high ropes in most schools. They recognize the
complexity of risk and the necessity to explore their
own struggles and challenges intellectually, emotion-
ally, and spiritually in order to empathize and discuss
these with their own students. The excerpt below,
self-titled ‘Freak Out’ traces the transformation of
an individual student and the insights she has gained
about the struggle for learning and risk-taking faced
by many students.
Excerpt 9:
When I left on Sunday afternoon, I was very
disappointed with myself. I entered this week-
end thinking it was going to be a piece of cake.
In fact, quite the opposite, it turned out to be
more like the center of a brewing volcano. I
learned stuff about myself that I never knew or
wanted to believe.
Although this experience has given me great
ideas for the classroom, I was surprised that I
learned more about myself and who I am as a
person. For me, this experience opened a door,
or cracked a shell so to speak, that I never knew
existed. I already know how team and com-
munity building is an essential aspect for
classroom success, and success in our everyday
lives. I also know how to go about creating a
small community amongst the students in my
class. The actual things I took with me this
weekend extend far beyond the spectrum of the
classroom. No, the things I took with me cannot
be written into a lesson plan.
This student has recognized the value of understand-
ing herself as a learner and a teacher in order to ap-
preciate fully her students. She learned about the
power of teamwork, community building, and encour-
agement in setting, working toward, and reaching
personal goals, all of which have now become part
 GERALD LARONDE, MICHELANN PARR 173

of her teaching self. Experiencing the power of an
encouraging word and a safe team building environ-
ment builds an awareness of the importance of
emotionally and physically safe environments for
learning.
Not only do the experiences change personal
awareness but they also affect participants’ attitudes
and expectations for different students. A classroom
is composed of diverse students, each with unique
strengths, needs, and abilities. It is a teacher’s re-
sponsibility to support all students and encourage
them to work to their full potential, as noted by the
following student.
Excerpt 10:
Before this weekend I was unsure about the
philosophy of putting students of different
achievement levels in the same group, as I
wondered if it would be a barrier for the higher
level students. This situation showed me first
hand that that is not so. The lower level student
was pushed to achieve a higher standard than
they would have set for themselves and the
higher level student still achieved the high
standard they had aimed for. Both students
achieved success.
Future Directions
• Do pre-service teachers, once they have gradu-
ated and become teachers with their own classes,
make use of outdoor and experiential education?
• How do we deal with the financial access issue
for students given that the cost of the course is
prohibitive for some?
Final Reflections
We sometimes get lost in the immediacy of life and
forget to take the time to gain from the many exper-
iences that are right here in front of us. The course
that we have developed provides us and our students
with time and opportunity to explore not only our
natural surroundings, but ourselves as well. One of
the greatest lessons we have learned throughout the
course is the need to take risks and grow along with
your students. What this means is that we must cap-
italize on every opportunity possible to engage in
self-exploration which extends beyond independence
into interdependence. As teachers and learners, we
must willingly acknowledge the recursive and cyclic-
al nature of learning that often returns us to our
starting place, which seems far away and long ago,
yet not so very far and not so very long ago. T.S.
Eliot discusses the true nature of exploration from
what one might consider to be both a literal and fig-
urative stance:

Often reflection encourages us to ask questions and
seek answers. Writing this article has required us to
look critically at prior research and theory as well as
reviewing student reflections from a different lens.
Without this critical inquiry and critical engagement,
we may become overly dependent on previous exper-
iences and less likely to develop alternative concep-
tualizations of teaching and learning within our
course (Boomer, 1993; Gardner & Boix-Mansilla,
1994; Gitlin, 1995; Palmer, 1998). We now have a
critical understanding of where we have come from
and where we are going in the course. We will con-
tinue to reflect on what works well and what requires
further attention. Questions for future investigation
include:
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
(Four Quartets, 1943)
Just as we have experienced our own exploration
and our own sense of selves as teachers, learners,
and explorers, so too do our students. We return
continually to our course, seeing it and knowing it
each time for the first time. This is the knowledge
and awareness that we want our students to accept
and take with them into their own classrooms. We
want them to realize that each new group of students
brings with them a new set of experiences that chal-
lenge us to grow, to learn, and to experience once
again the newness of trust, risk, and growth.

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About the Authors

Gerald Laronde
Gerald is an assistant professor who teaches Science Education, and Outdoor and Experiential Education at
Nipissing University, North Bay, Ontario, Canada.
Michelann Parr
I am currently a doctoral student in the Department of Integrated Studies in Education. I work as an Assistant
Professor in a small university in Northern Ontario; I teach courses on Kindergarten, Language and Literacy,
Special Education, Inclusive Education, and Outdoor Education. My research interests focus on literacy, students
'at risk', teacher development, learner engagement, and technological support systems for learning.