Project Adventure is an approach to education, counseling, recreation, and life that is engaging, active, challenging, and places a high level of expectation within an atmosphere of support and caring. The impact of the approach is strongly felt with-in a group, where cohesion and cooperation are often achieved with surprising dispatch. Even more profound is the effect upon the individual, who develops clearer insights and a fuller appreciation of self (Prouty, 1989).
Project Adventure is a non-profit organization specializing in Adventure learning. For the past twenty-five years, we have been teaching professionals in corporations, schools, camps and therapeutic programs to use Adventure education techniques. When work is challenging, active and intriguing, we can be most effective. Adventure programs carry a depth of meaning and an impact that will be lasting in any context. We strive to give connective meaning to activities that stimulate and engage us as lifelong learners (Prouty, 1996).
I. Experiential Learning Cycle
Experiential Learning is central to the Adventure in the Classroom model. It is often captured by the proverb, "What I see I forget; what I hear I remember; what I do I understand." Experiential learning is the difference between activity for activity's sake and activity as a first step in learning. The four part of the Experiential Leaning Cycle are:
1) activity, 2) reflection, 3)generalizing and abstracting, and 4) transfer.
II. Challenge by Choice
This operating principle is a unique feature of all Project Adventure programs and affirms that real learning occurs when individuals choose and commit to high standards for academic and personal goals that are meaningful to the individuals involved. A teaching and learning environment that operates by Challenge by Choice strengthens academic and interpersonal learning in at least three ways:
III. Full Value Contract
The Full Value Contract calls for students to respect the integrity, diversity, and strengths of the group at the same time that they respect and support the group as a whole. The Full Value Contract becomes an actual physical document that the students develop... it asks the following five commitments of the members of the adventure learning community:
Pedagogy in Short:
The four primary instructional strategies used in the Adventure in the Classroom Model are 1)adventure activities, 2)processing, 3)team learning and teaching, and 4) integrated curriculum. When facilitated in a nurturing classroom setting these strategies support-