Education News | Page 19
Embodying our pedagogy
in outdoor education during my undergraduate years were on faculty at this university .” After finishing his Master ’ s in 1987 , Nick moved back to Regina to teach at Dieppe Elementary School and he also taught the Winter Outdoor Course as a sessional at the U of R . In 1988 , Nick was offered a full-time term appointment , which eventually transitioned to a tenuretrack position . This was the beginning of a 32-year career with the Faculty of Education . As a requirement of his employment , Nick began his PhD in 1992 with the University of Alberta , and took 1 year off from teaching at the U of R to do his residency in Edmonton and successfully defended his dissertation in 1995 .
Nick points to his undergraduate and faculty experiences at OCRE ( Off Campus Residential Experience ) held at Fort San , Saskatchewan for many years , as the opportunity that changed the course of his career . “ Everybody went , 120 students and the current faculty , 3 days in fall and 3 days in winter .” OCRE was so influential that it became the topic of Nick ’ s dissertation . The reason OCRE was significant was “ because we did it , we didn ’ t just talk about it ,” says Nick , “ The experience modeled that relational quality in teaching where teaching and learning become real ... Professors and students teaching and learning in the outdoors , eating together , and , if they wanted , sleeping in a tent or teepee in fall or a quinzhee in winter — the outdoors leveled the playing field — We were all just people .”
An insight Nick gleaned from the OCRE experience was that “ teaching and learning are not confined to a fourwalled building or classroom .” He refers to the late Dr . Garth Pickard ’ s regular question about exit and enter signs above doors in buildings , asking , “ When we leave the building are we exiting or entering a way of teaching and learning ? Maybe these signs should be reversed : exit signs on the outside and enter signs on the inside .”
Nick has vivid memories of colleagues teaching their subject matter outdoors , often through an interdisciplinary lens . Reminiscing about the days before budget cuts took OCRE and its later version PLACE ( Professional Learning as Community Experience ) out of the program , Nick points out that being out on the land at OCRE was a natural way of teaching and learning content . “ We also learned alongside our colleagues from SIFC ( now FNUC ) and SUNTEP as well as the Bac program . Being on the land created an embodied living curriculum and we engaged in this experientially .”
Some major influences who encouraged Nick ’ s path in health , outdoor and physical education ( HOPE ) include Dr . Larry Lang , Dr . Garth
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