🔥 How can I take my students and their learning outdoors?
🔥 How do students win when learning occurs outside the school building?
🔥 How do curriculum, feedback, and assessment appear in outdoor environments?
Join me for this conversation with LAUREN MACLEAN as she shares her insights on these and other critical questions.
About This Guest: Lauren is an elementary school teacher and the author of Me and My Sit Spot, Finding Common Ground, and Sitting with Nature: An Educator's Guide to Sit Spots. She is the host of the Teach Outdoors podcast where she shares her passion for outdoor learning and promoting environmental education. She is also an outdoor learning consultant for school districts in Canada and the USA.
Connect with Lauren
on Linkedin,
on X @lkmaclean,
on YouTube @TeachOutdoors
on Instagram @teachoutdoors.ca,
on TikTok @teachoutdoorsca, and
at her website, teachoutdoors.ca.
Tune in for my regular Teachers on Fire interviews, airing LIVE on YouTube every Saturday morning at 8:00am Pacific and 11:00am Eastern! Join the conversation and add your comments to the broadcast.
In This Conversation:
0:15 - Who is Lauren MacLean?
1:25 - Story Time: Lauren recalls responding to an upset parent
4:10 - Lauren describes the themes in her latest book, Finding Common Ground
6:19 - Why teaching and learning outdoors sets Lauren on fire
8:44 - The natural environment around Lauren's elementary school
10:26 - How to respond to the practical challenges of teaching outdoors
13:09 - How to address feedback and assessment in the outdoor classroom
16:24 - Lauren discusses her first children's book, Me and My Sit Spot
19:29 - Nature's Path: 12 months of professional support for schools and educators
21:50 - Lauren previews her next book project: Sitting with Nature
24:06 - Passions outside of teaching and nature: field hockey and gardening
25:31 - Daily productivity hacks: waking up early, mud water, quiet
26:50 - A favorite edtech tool: ‪@SeesawEdu‬Â
27:38 - A book recommendation: Unschooled by Kerry McDonald
28:39 - People to follow online: Janice Novakowski, Megan Zeni (Room to Play), and Outdoor Learning Store
29:13 - What Lauren's streaming in her down time: Alone
29:49 - How and where to follow Lauren online
Connect with Teachers on Fire and Host Tim Cavey:
On X @TeachersOnFire (https://X.com/TeachersOnFire)
On Facebook @TeachersOnFire (https://www.facebook.com/TeachersOnFire/)
On YouTube @Teachers On Fire (https://www.youtube.com/@teachersonfire)
On LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/timwcavey/
Visit the home of Teachers on Fire at https://teachersonfire.net/.
Song Track Credit
Tropic Fuse by French Fuse
GO! by Neffex
*All songs retrieved from the YouTube Audio Library at https://www.youtube.com/audiolibrary/.