At the recent Teach Outdoors Outdoor Learning Conference, educators had the opportunity to attend a transformative workshop by Shevek Pring, an award-winning business owner, educator, and advocate for environmental and social causes. Shevek’s session focused on the use of open-ended activities to support learners with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND).
Understanding the Importance of Open-Ended Activities
Open-ended activities are invaluable in supporting SEND learners. These activities encourage creativity, collaboration, and communication, providing a low-risk environment where failure is not a concern. They promote the development of key social skills and help build a growth mindset, essential for adaptive learning. As Shevek Pring highlighted, open-ended tasks offer multiple avenues for engagement, reducing compliance anxiety and supporting learners with various needs.
Workshop Activities
Activity 1: Collaborative Construction
- Materials: Gather a variety of objects such as tarps, tyres, planks, and ropes.
- Setup: Arrange these materials to look as if you are halfway through building something.
- Task: Ask the group to help you complete the construction. The activity should be facilitated to encourage idea generation and collaboration, allowing the group to steer the direction of the project.
Activity 2: Comfort Zone Circles
- Materials: Use rope or string to create three concentric circles on the ground.
- Setup: Explain that the circles represent a comfort zone, a stretch zone, and a panic zone (with the panic zone in the middle for better control and support).
- Task: Pose a series of questions related to curriculum topics, behaviour, or social-emotional learning. Ask learners how they feel about various statements and encourage them to contribute their own questions. This activity helps learners identify and communicate their comfort levels in different scenarios.
Strategies for Managing Behaviours
Shevek provided comprehensive strategies for managing a range of behaviours during outdoor activities:
- Disagreements: Establish supportive rules such as time-limited speaking turns and the use of a ‘talking stick’ to ensure everyone gets a chance to speak.
- Flight Risks: Focus activities inward and clearly identify and support at-risk learners.
- Refusal: Offer choices and low-demand engagement tasks to reduce anxiety and build confidence.
- Disengagement: Use re-engagement tactics like asking learners to contribute ideas or handle specific responsibilities.
- Anger Management: Allow learners to express their anger through physical activity or problem-solving discussions.
- Managing Conflicts: Facilitate brief, structured discussions to resolve conflicts while maintaining focus on the overall class.
- Attention Seeking: Reframe attention-seeking behaviour as a need for connection and provide undivided attention when learners are positively engaged.
- Low-Level Disruptions: Use sliding scales to gauge behaviour and give learners responsibilities to foster engagement.
- Withdrawal: Check basic needs and provide low-demand tasks linked to the class activities to support withdrawn learners.
- Physical Aggression: Ensure safety by separating individuals involved in conflicts and providing clear, explicit instructions.
Theoretical Foundations
- Growth Mindset: Encouraging learners to adopt adaptive learning responses (Dweck and Leggett, 1988).
- Theory of Loose Parts: Promoting creativity and discovery through varied and plentiful materials (Simon Nicholson, 1971).
- Play and Learning: Reducing the number of synaptic pathways needed for learning through play (Bijlsma et al., 2022).
For more resources on effective team-building and practical activities, you can explore Shevek’s book, “Effective Teambuilding and Practical Activity.”
