Journal #2

What you found out about your colleagues that you didn’t know:

To begin with, I thought the EDGE experience was great and part of what made it a great experience was learning about my colleagues.  For instance, I learned which ones are more inclined to take leadership roles and how others were able to work together as a team taking into accounts everyone’s ideas and then coming up with the best possible plan forward.  I felt like the EDGE exercises really had a way of bring out individual personalities and characteristics.

What you found out about yourself today:

I found out that I’m very good at following directions.  Whenever someone told me to do something for the team, I did not hesitate and did the very best that I could.  I suppose I’m good military material!  From a physical standpoint, at the climbing tower I found the activity to very easy for me letting me know that I’m in fairly good physical condition for outdoor learning activities.  As a result of finding out things about myself, I realized that I need to work on voicing my opinions more and stepping up in a team setting into more of a leadership role.

What the facilitators did well today:

The facilitators did a very good job of drawing a relationship between the activities we did to real life situations.  Many of the activities taught us that sometimes we must trust and rely on others to help us in order to accomplish a goal.   Additionally, they talked to us about how we went about solving problems and how we might encounter similar problems later on in our profession.  For example, sometimes we may not have the perfect solution and by asking others their opinions a better solution may result.

What the facilitators could improve for working with groups such as ours:

I realize that the exercises are designed for some category of students, but I felt that the tests could have been made a bit more challenging for people of our age.  A number of the activities were very easy.  For example, because we as young adults are so big, the exercise having to do with getting the rope that was in the middle of the ditch was very easy.

Journal #1

What you found most interesting that you might be learning or doing in this course:

One part of class that I’ve found to be most interesting thus far is that in the upcoming weeks we’re going to be spending the day with and learning from a Naturalist.  I’m also looking forward to getting the opportunity to visit different parks and learn about the outdoors in general and outdoor educational and recreational activities.   

Whether or not the course is what you expected and Why or Why Not:

In general, I think the course was what I was expecting.  I knew there was going to be an outdoor aspect to it, but I was unsure exactly what it might be until reading the syllabus.  The course deals with outdoor education, so I assumed we would be developing a lesson plan for outdoor activities that might be useful for us in our careers.  I also thought that there would outdoor activities we would be participating in and seeing that Geocaching is one such activity is something that I believe will be fun for the entire class.

Two “things” you hope to learn in this class:

The first thing that I hope I can learn from this class is how to become a good leader and learn the skills necessary to be able to teach others about all aspects of outdoor activities and recreation and to appreciate them.   The second thing that I’m hoping to learn from this class is an even greater appreciation for the outdoors than what I have right now by learning things that I might not otherwise have known without taking this class.

How you think Outdoor Education can help you in your future endeavors:

For one, I believe that outdoor education will come into play later in my life as a coach.  I believe the skills that I will learn from the team building and lesson plan creation activities will be very similar to those that I will need to do in coaching a team full of young kids.  Secondly, I believe that outside of any future classroom or coaching activities that I may be involved in, outdoor education will provide my personal life with a greater appreciation for outdoor elements that I might have just taken for granted.