Master of Education in Curriculum Studies: Outdoor Learning Across the Curriculum

30 credit-hours

Please note we are not currently accepting applications for this Program; updates will be posted when updates are available.

Acadia’s new Master of Education in Curriculum Studies: Outdoor Learning Across the Curriculum will provide educators and leaders with the knowledge and skills necessary to take learning outside the classroom across the curriculum.

The focus of this program will be on upskilling teachers to have the skills, knowledges, attributes, and confidence to use outdoor environments as powerful sites for teaching and learning.  The outdoors is conceptualized broadly here to include everyday, local, nearby landscapes (like school grounds, community grounds, and urban settings) as well as more remote, wilderness places.  Outdoor learning can also include local community members, who can become powerful members of the learning community.  Through research-informed, transdisciplinary, and decolonization course frameworks, educators will be prepared to participate in the curriculum-redesigning, instruction, assessment, leadership, and policymaking necessary for learning to happen outside the classroom. This program does not focus on upskilling participants in how to teach technical outdoor skills (such as kayaking, canoeing, rock-climbing), but instead focuses on exploring the pedagogies and practices that best support teaching outside the classroom across a range of curriculum areas.

Teaching and learning in this graduate degree will happen as often as possible in outdoor places deemed best to support the learning outcomes. This will include school grounds, community grounds, field centres, and provincial/national parks.  Participants will also have an opportunity to participate in an extended practicum in Nova Scotia, such as outdoor education centres, provincial/national parks, and guided tour companies. Through a final Capstone Project, program participants will have the opportunity to explore a focus area or passion project in depth that is related to their individual professional goals.

Acadia University’s School of Education will be offering this new program starting in July 2023. This cohort-based program delivery will have an annual enrolment of 20 educators and leaders. There will be in-person residency requirements throughout the program, supplemented with synchronous and asynchronous modalities.

Course facilitation will potentially be an integration of in-person, synchronous and asynchronous modalities. Apart from the two required summer sessions onsite at Acadia, the decision on instructional modalities for the remainder of the program will be made after initial feedback from interested students, with the decision communicated clearly to all.

Foundational areas of focus will include:

• Outdoor learning curriculum
• Instructional pedagogies and practices
• Cross curricular opportunities
• Wild pedagogies and place based education
• Safety and risk management and leadership
• Decolonization and Indigenous Ways of Knowing
• Experiential learning
• Health, physical activity, well being and mental health
• Inclusive education, social justice, and equity

All students in the cohort must meet the academic requirements for admission to graduate studies in the School of Education at Acadia University. Please be aware that it is your responsibility to monitor your own program and to ensure that you have met degree requirements.

Features

• Two-year, part-time program
• Thesis option available