Professional development program supports K–12 learning through campus-based, outdoor activities

The challenge

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected students’ lives in multiple ways and it has deepened the divide in educational opportunity and achievement of Arizona students, especially students living in high poverty areas. Instructional loss led to unfinished learning, with assessments and related studies indicating that this has disproportionately impacted students from low-income backgrounds. Research has also illuminated that lost educational opportunities have affected student socio-emotional development since the pandemic through increased anxiety levels and higher levels of loneliness. Most approaches for addressing the mitigation of COVID-19 focus primarily on academic learning or on social emotional learning, but not both. At the same time, the pandemic amplified challenges facing an already overextended educator workforce.

The approach

Teachers Connecting Campuses and Core Curricula (TC4) addresses a need to support the work of highly-effective K–12 teachers serving students recovering from unfinished learning by strengthening teacher capacity and instruction in the areas of science, literacy and nutrition. The program, which is funded through the Arizona Office of the Governor, is led by MLFTC Associate Professor Steve Zuiker, who serves as principal investigator, with the support of co-investigators Jessica Early, a professor of English at ASU and  Scott Cloutier, an assistant professor with ASU’s College of Global Futures.

The 38-hour hybrid professional development program integrates a unique focus on the implementation of outdoor education opportunities available at school campuses, and it leverages and expands on educator networks that are currently in place through projects led by the following partners: Blue Watermelon Project, the Mollen Foundation, Hedberg Garden Group and Lifelab Studios. A core team of ASU faculty will collaborate with these external partners to focus on the following curriculum integration agendas: outdoor labs, outdoor kitchens, outdoor writing studios, and outdoor gardens. In addition, The Central Arizona Writing Project, which is led by Early, is also being integrated as part of the outdoor language studios. 

Over twelve months, the program will support 200 teachers in planning and executing local outdoor classroom implementations that integrate existing curricular materials with existing campus settings and resources. It will enhance learning opportunities for more than 5000 K–12 students, improving academic achievement and directly supporting social and emotional learning, in the following ways:

1. Creating educator communities: The project will support Arizona K–12 teachers to build connections between the content of subject area curriculum materials they are already familiar with and the outdoor contexts readily accessible on their school campuses. Rather than asking teachers to consume content together and apply it alone, the program organizes the teachers into supportive communities to learn, work, and grow alongside relatable peers; to connect to research-based teaching strategies and innovative curriculum ideas; share teaching stories; and demonstrate and inspire professional and instructional growth. The program also provides an online platform for collaboration and coordination to mobilize a shared system with co-designed resources and support strategies.

2. Connecting educators with outdoor education non-profits: Strengthening connections between educators as well as non-profit groups aligned with the program’s goals serves to refine and mobilize evidence-informed outdoor classroom activities. Connections between subject area content and outdoor campus contexts and connections between peers and non-profits positions the program to support K–12 teachers in building, and growing, their capacity to activate meaningful recovery efforts that impact students in connection to instructional and curricular areas that include science, math, literacy and social studies. 

3. Providing ongoing professional development supports: Four cycles will support teacher-driven integration plans and outdoor classroom implementations. Each cycle includes two online modules that support teachers in developing capacity to adapt: an outdoor classroom module and a curriculum integration module. Outdoor classroom modules provide resources, strategies, and supports for implementing outdoor activities. Curriculum integration modules support curriculum adaptation strategies using subject area exemplars. To complete these modules, participating teachers will develop a customized integration plan that utilizes curriculum materials provided by their schools and the unique context of their school campus. 

To support professional learning implementation fidelity, the program will develop a set of professional development facilitation materials. Facilitation guides, which document and support evidence-based professional development practices, will be modeled after those that have been carefully developed by local and regional partners. With this focus on quality, intensity, and duration, in the service of instructional improvement, TC4 will become a scalable program that can continue to serve teachers long after the federal support concludes within Arizona.