How to develop and implement teaching projects in outdoor education

Abstract

Learning through projects can raise interest and motivation, and support the construction of competencies, disciplinary, and interdisciplinary knowledge via working on real-life problems in realistic settings. One form of project-based learning is outdoor education, that is, situating learning and instruction in settings outside the regular classroom. We present a course for students in the teacher education program at ETH Zurich that implements project-based education on two layers: the course itself is project-based, and the pre-service teachers create project-based outdoor teaching units during the course. We describe how we balance freedom and guidance, and scaffolding in the course design. In addition, we report how students respond to and evaluate our course, and discuss challenges and opportunities for lecturers. By presenting sample projects and insights from the implementation and continuous development of the project-based course, we aim to inspire and guide lecturers at ETH Zurich and other universities who consider implementing project-based courses in their teaching.