Week 3.
A friday which made me think I shouldn't have gotten out of bed was made remarkably better after an active and engaging SCP tutorial. Attending an early tutorial also made it possible for me to be involved in the Duke of Edinburgh weekend with a few Canberra College.
Having already packed the truck and bought all the dehydrated food packs that would be needed I headed to one of the Colleges to assist with packing the support vehicles and students on to the busses before heading out, admittedly an hour behind schedule. The drive took us past Coma, beyond Adaminaby and into the Kosciuszko National Park. Arriving after dark made the experience of getting 46 students organised enough to set up camp a little more difficult then normal, most knew what they where doing, luckily. There where two students whom it appeared hadn't bothered to ever set up their tent before and so as a result the crumpled mess which I approached didn't much resemble a tent. After some helpful comments be older students of abandoning the tent and just climbing in with anyone else, we managed to work out where they had gone wrong (tying the guy-ropes to the tent poles) and set up.
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| Coolamine Homested (But wetter)- Kosciuszko Huts Association |
A super early start was needed to get through the Nav and mud maps, which meant I got to run around camp at 6:30AM screaming "ZOMBIE INVASION!!" I'm sure the students appreciated it. Ensuring each hike group knew the bearings they would be following, terrain they would be covering and knew the emergency procedures should anything go wrong we released them into the wild.
With the senior students running the show and the hike well under way I proceeded to sweep after the last group with a number of other adults. Surprisingly none of the groups where drawn in by Devils Influx and they toughed threw the tea-tree, making it to the second checkpoint roughly on time. We cut back to main camp and then proceeded down to the gully, which should of provided no real problems to the groups, two hours latter and no one had reached checkpoint three... awkward.
It hasn't been on the news so needless to say we found them roughly 3Km off track and quickly turned them around. Eventually all the groups arrived at our second camp site for the night. After debriefing the groups there was more then enough time for a quick walk down to the water holes for a chill out and bit of a cave exploring. I have two more days of hiking and student misdirection which I could continue to talk about. Yet the weekend as a whole worked in nicely with the week three topic, Planning Programs.
Mainly because myself and several of the other adults expressed our disappointment to the Teacher in charge at the lack of planning and participation which was present during the weekend. We felt under used and more like a check off the insurance list. A lesson, excursion or weekend away can be made a much easier and more effective process with planning. Not only are many issues and problems solved before they actually affect the learning environment, but this allows teachers to have a reference point to look back on and work off.
Plans don't mean nothing will go wrong or that everything in the plan is right, but a plan allows us as educators to take a step back from what we are teaching, to view the lesson which we wish to impart and then take a look at the students which are in our care and tailor the programs to better suit the individual learning needs of our students. Teacher Education, provides a great look at why planning is so important for teachers and the difference it can make in the classroom- Effective Planning.
Reference List;
Kosciuszko Huts Association
Coolamine Homestead
Burton, J.
Effective Planning
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Thanks for this post, Nichola. You have prompted me to think about the resources each person brings to activity. You seem to have a great store of resilience and pragmatism.
ReplyDeleteKeith