In partnership with the Southern Cross University
Pullenvale Environmental Education Centre (PEEC) is very excited to have the opportunity to work with passionate and enthusiastic pre-service teachers from the Southern Cross University.
A select group of Primary or Early Childhood Education students learn about PEEC’s Experiential Pedagogy (teaching and learning beyond the classroom through: Drama, Games and Play; Attentiveness in Nature; and Deep Reflective Responding) & then visit PEEC the following week to observe a program with visiting students & teachers to see the pedagogy in action.
At the end of their experience with PEEC, pre-service teachers are asked to complete written reflections of their observation experience and consider the impact of the pedagogy they observed on student engagement.
Students were able to put the skills they had been discussing (as ‘Nature Detectives’) into practice in a wonderful environment and were given freedom in choosing what they wanted to explore or know more about … acting out being real life nature detectives.
Students were able to walk into the forest and apply knowledge they’d learnt from class and integrate and embody it in this new setting.
Students were really motived after returning from the forest to find the extra ordinary!
Additionally, students were asked to comment on how their experience with PEEC has impacted on their personal ecological identity and their future practice as a Teacher.
It is inspiring; I really want to teach like this, if I could go and teach tomorrow I would be excited.
I want to remember how easy it is to spend time in nature because students are more relaxed and engaged.
I learnt that I can use PEEC values to be the teacher I would like to be. I hope to teach students with the knowledge of the connection between self, others and place.
As you can see, feedback from the students is overwhelmingly positive with students citing the experience as inspiring, providing them with teachable strategies for the future and a real sense of how their future classrooms could extend beyond four walls.
We really enjoy sharing what we love to do with others and are really excited about the partnership we have been building with Southern Cross University and pre-service teachers.