ABSTRACT

Research into pedagogical approaches used in early years’ nature education, more specifically European and UK forest schools, remains according to Leather, ‘undertheorised.’ In a similar situation in Australia, the bush kindergarten programmes (referred to as ‘bush kinders’), have had limited research attention. Influenced by European and UK forest school approaches, bush kinders are a recent development in Australian early years nature education. We discuss an ethnographic study where teaching and learning in three bush kinder settings was observed, each with different pedagogical approaches. The paper reports one main finding, where a wide range of pedagogical approaches were observed across the different bush kinder sites. To theoretically frame these pedagogical approaches, our analysis builds on Edwards’ notion of play-based learning, along with a model of inquiry-based teaching proposed by Furtak et al. Using ethnographic methods we draw on fieldwork data and research literature to analyse bush kinder pedagogies. The paper contributes to the conceptualisation of pedagogy in early childhood nature and bush kinder programmes.

摘要

Leather 认为，对早年自然教育中使用的教学方法的研究，更具体地说是欧洲和英国的森林学校，仍然“理论不足”。在澳大利亚的类似情况下，丛林幼儿园计划（称为“丛林幼儿园”）受到的研究关注有限。受欧洲和英国森林学校方法的影响，丛林幼儿园是澳大利亚早期自然教育的最新发展。我们讨论了一项民族志研究，其中观察了三种丛林幼儿园环境中的教学和学习，每种环境都有不同的教学方法。该论文报告了一个主要发现，即在不同的丛林幼儿园地点观察到范围广泛的教学方法。为了从理论上构建这些教学方法，我们的分析建立在爱德华兹基于游戏的学习概念之上，以及 Furtak 等人提出的基于探究的教学模式。我们使用民族志方法，利用实地调查数据和研究文献来分析丛林幼儿园的教学法。该论文有助于在幼儿自然和丛林幼儿园课程中对教育学进行概念化。