Week 6: Communicating Your Vision Reflection Questions
1) To what extent does your mission reflect your commitment to nature-based education, nature play, and outdoor learning as a whole?
We are a nonprofit focused on adult and family literacy, basic skills, and ESOL education in particular, so our mission and vision statements only address those aspects. Our focus as an organization is on crafting individually tailored learning experiences addressing basic skills, and the program that I am working on adapting into one incorporating outdoor based learning opportunities is a distance + virtual pre-literacy and pre-reading program for families with children ages 0 to 3.
2) How well does your program’s website/social media/online presence reflect your commitment? What ideas do you have for improvement?
For my Baby Book Bag Club, I would say the details are subtle but widespread. Each month we announced the new book bags with a post in our private Facebook Group for participants, and the photo is almost always taken outdoors incorporating natural items. Although reading is something that most people traditionally think occurs indoors, many participants share photos of their family outside enjoying our book bags and play provocations. I'm hoping that with a focus being on getting outside this summer, that we will have more opportunities for this method of inclusion. I'm also hoping that we can find additional resources to recommend to our participants, and that we can use some of their submitted photos and videos in our media
3) What policies do you currently have that need to be updated or added to your school’s
handbook?
We have none for outdoor experiences, although our hold harmless waivers may need updating as a whole. I imagine we'll probably have to craft some kind of statement about being responsible for your little ones when you take them outside, as several of our suggested activities will be things like book trails at the Arboretum, a visit to the farmers market, or working in a local community garden.
4) In terms of print collateral (brochures, flyers, etc.), do these materials reflect your approach to nature-based education
For the Baby Book Bag Club, yes. Almost all of the monthly photos are set outside, and those are the imagery that has been submitted alongside grants and in local media. It would be nice together more photos of outside specific actions, but as our group came into being during the pandemic we haven't seen a full year of seasons yet...so we're still working on things!
5) Does your team receive adequate professional development centered around nature-based topics, as relevant to your work with children
No, this is the first time anyone in our group has received any professional development in these topics. This is all very new territory for us, and most of our professional development deals with working with adult basic literacy and ESOL learners in non-traditional settings that still largely tend to be indoors.
6) When families visit your school for a tour or Open House, do they learn about key approaches, policies, and philosophy as related to nature-based education? If not, how can you better incorporate these elements?
We are a digital, distance-learning program, so there is no forward facing components like open houses... although our Facebook and website probably serve this purpose, and could be reconfigured a bit to provide more background info. I suppose our bags and marketing collateral would serve as our community contact in this instance. Starting in the summer, we will be releasing bags focused on the outdoors that include caregiver training materials focused on navigating these environments, so I feel that would be very appropriate to nature based education. I'm excited to see how this all turns out!
7) How can other members of the learning community add to this dialogue? (Children, parent group, neighbors, staff, admin, volunteers/interns, Board members, other community stake holders, etc.)
We facilitate an ongoing and open dialogue with participants and stakeholders, and accept suggestions from everywhere. That's one of the things that makes our program so unique, and so learner-centric. All of our programs are individually customized and tailored for the participants, with the learners themselves suggesting possible topics and focal areas that the coordinators and instructors then work around.
8) How do current parents learn about their child’s progress and skill development as it relates to nature-based play? (Consider child assessment in outdoor settings.)
Through our parents guides and caregiver training, and through being tutored to provide the supports themselves. Our curriculum is unique in that it is a Parents As Tutors structured environment with targeted, individualized, and personalizable curriculum, so we work with training the caregivers and providing them with resources and teacher constructed materials for education.
9) Describe ways you currently (or would like to) inform parents about the value of nature-based education. How do you keep parents informed and engaged? (Consider parent education and extended opportunities to participate in nature-based learning, events, school projects, etc.)
We don't at present, but look forward to really focusing on this in the summer. I would say with the unique structure of our program that we may provide more focus on this than many other programs are able to do, since we work with parents and families as a whole. That's a very unique benefit to our structure, and one that in general we excel in creating.
10) What other initiatives could help you promote a more authentic vision for your program and educational philosophy?
I'm actually thinking we could do some partnerships, and that I need to do some more targeted research regarding teaching preliteracy and pre-reading skills through outdoor initiatives. I have a few leads to follow up on and some research that has been suggested, but I would very much enjoy learning more about how other programs tackle this in more direct ways. (I know indirectly that preliteracy skills can be taught through various physical manipulations and manifestations, but I would like to see how more phonics and academic based programs are conducted outside. It seems imminently feasible to me, but I have not had a lot of luck finding direct instruction.)
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