From programming to curriculuming in planning and teaching outdoor education

Abstract In this paper I invite outdoor educators to consider a different way of planning programs. I start by arguing for outdoor education as a subject with its own curriculum, interpreted and applied locally and contextually. Working with such curriculum in outdoor education has often been undertaken via programming, which emphasizes transfer of learning beyond the program. Another way of working with curriculum is to mimic school subjects, for which assessment of learning is key, with major assessment occurring after learning is completed, summatively. I suggest there is a further way that draws on aspects of both but does not position the main focus of learning as something that happens after the program is finished. This further way I describe as curriculuming, turning curriculum from a noun into a verb, as Boomer did. Curriculuming embraces teacher and student agency, with assessment also positioned as a verb: formative assessing. Consequently, the assessing task is the outdoor education program itself, with each program activity being organised around criteria as the vehicle enabling reflection, feedback, and transfer of learning within the program. Employed in this way, criteria situate explicit teaching where and when it is most relevant, as well as enabling collection of evidence of learning throughout a program.