Five stages of development in the facilitation of adventure experiences in order of sophistication are letting the experience speak for itself; speaking for the experience by the instructor; debriefing the experience through reflection; frontloading the experience with prebriefing; and framing the experience isomorphically. (KS)

Action learning is being used in corporate training; teams or work groups take an actual problem to the training program, work on solving it, commit to an action plan, and are accountable for carrying out the plan. Some companies include personal-growth training, such as outdoor adventure learning, as a component of team building. (JOW)

A veteran adventure educator offers pearls of wisdom: identify those people who want/need to meet, and encourage them to do that; identify something that no one else wants to do, and do it well; failing forward with confidence regularly produces better results than confident discussion; play mitigates fear; a good idea doesn't care who has it; and…

Surveys a variety of conflicting philosophies and their underlying values that have influenced the development and direction of outdoor adventure education. Suggests that outdoor adventure education and experiential ways of learning are intrinsically at the margins of pedagogy and demand a generalized framework that incorporates and balances…

Adventure training has become fashionable over the past few years in Hong Kong. Current Education Reform suggests learning should not be confined to the classroom, and adventure training is viewed as an alternative method to institutional routines for personal and group development. This paper reported a longitudinal study investigating how…

This document defines terms related to outdoor recreation: (1) outdoor recreation includes activities that occur outdoors in an urban and man-made environment as well as those activities traditionally associated with the natural environment; (2) outdoor education is education in, about, and for the outdoors; (3) environmental education is an…

Adventure programs attempt to control or limit injuries in high-risk programming. This risk management has concentrated on the physical safety of participants at the expense of emotional and developmental security. In the zeal for accident-free statistics, a highly controlled, directive approach is created that treats individuals according to a…

Advocates use of rituals to foster intimate, caring relationship with one's place and to develop a sense of community within a group. Describes "Talking Staff" and "Medicine Wheel" as tools for debriefing, performance of camp chores, and fostering ecological awareness and a sense of place. (NEC)

Identifies series of predictable stages through which small groups progress: pre-affiliation, power and control, intimacy, differentiation, and separation. Shows application of group development for each area as group passes through various stages. Outlines model for each area summarizing group interaction and instructor roles for each stage. (NEC)

Examines perceived threat of commercialism on the ethical foundation of the experiential education movement. Contends that relationship between humanistic values often espoused by experiential educators need not be in conflict with a commercial, profit-oriented perspective. (NEC)

Experiential learning can be understood as a process in which learners recognize and develop their "action-theory." The aim of outdoor development programs--whether mainstream education, corporate training, or therapy--is to facilitate this process. A "reflection-in-action" approach to facilitation is presented and situated in…

People involved in adventurous activities frequently experience positive phenomena termed peak experience, peak performance, and "flow." Characteristics of these phenomena are compared, along with factors influencing the ability to experience such peak moments. Csikszentmihalyi's flow models are examined with regard to perceived levels…

Examines four frequent assumptions about the relationships between adventure education and experiential learning. Suggests that learning requires more than just doing, that adventure education practitioners must encourage participants to make sense out of their experiences through reflection, and that practitioners themselves must reflect on their…

Reviewing is an important component of adventure education that involves reflecting, describing, analyzing, and communicating what has been experienced. Reviewing adds value to the adventure experience for participants and provides information the leader can use to evaluate and revise the program. (KS)

The stages of a model for reviewing or "debriefing" an adventure experience are: experience, or relive what happened; express feelings about the experience; examine, or analyze the experience for learning; and explore something brought out in the previous stages. Describes suggested activities for each stage of the sequence. (KS)