This year-long educational skiing program will focus on a thorough analysis of the skiing industry. Through this analysis, the program will develop students' systems thinking skills. Another portion of the program will help students improve their resort, Nordic, and backcountry skiing skills. The skiing industry is almost oxymoronic. Positive skiing experiences often create a positive relationship between the skier and the natural environment. At the same time, resort, backcountry, and Nordic skiing can negatively impact the environment. A holistic analysis of the skiing industry will force students to consider the ecological, economic, political, cultural, and personal facets and view the industry as a system. Students will use firsthand experiences of skiing to develop a personal connection to nature and motivation to care for the environment. One main goal of the program is to draw upon students' connection to nature and understanding of the skiing industry as a system to empower them to participate in environmental action.
The curriculum recommendations and teaching practices for developing students’ skiing and systems thinking skills are based on the work of Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, Lev Vygotsky, and Benjamin Bloom. Immordino-Yang highlights the connection between emotions and learning. Both the structure of the program and the curriculum recommendations consider the impact of emotions on learning. The inclusion of skiing in the program will support emotions and thus learning by improving students’ mental and physical health. Additionally, the recommended activities provide space for educators to be conscious of student’s emotions and adapt to fit the needs of their students.
Next, the program's curriculum and teaching practices will align with Vygotsky's theory on learning and development. Vygotsky identifies that there are some skills that students can do on their own and others that they can do only with the assistance of an adult. Skills that students can only execute with the assistance of an adult sit in what Vygotsky calls the student's zone of proximal development (ZPD). The process of systems thinking can be a challenge for students in high school. Program educators will draw upon the theory of the ZPD to help guide students in developing their systems thinking skills. Finally, teaching practices for skiing and systems thinking skills will be informed by Bloom's taxonomy of the cognitive domain. The revised taxonomy identifies six levels that increase complexity: remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate, and create. The curriculum will use the hierarchy as a loose structure to guide students through the appropriate levels when developing their systems thinking and skiing skills. Following Bloom's taxonomy's hierarchy will ensure that the curriculum increases in complexity in an order that will be most beneficial to student learning.
2.Skill development
The development of students' skiing abilities during the program will vary depending on physical and emotional factors like fear, internal motivation, prior ability, and aptitude for kinesthetic learning. Despite this variability, students will individually work on sub-skills to develop their general skiing ability. I will discuss the progression of an individual sub-skill (boot pressure) and how beginner skiers may develop their overall skiing ability over the year-long program. The first four levels of Bloom’s taxonomy exemplify the learning progression of developing the skill of boot pressure. Students must first remember that pressure relates to their toes in their ski boots and can assist with making turns. Next, students will understand that applying pressure in their downhill pinky toe and uphill big toe will turn their skis uphill. Students will then be able to apply the concept of pressure to turn their skis in practice. Through analysis, students may connect the concept of pressure with the angle and flex of their ankles.
The last two levels of Bloom’s taxonomy, evaluate and create, would not be in the ZPD of a beginner skier. Students with intermediate skiing ability should be able to evaluate or potentially create specific skiing techniques with instructor guidance. Some advanced skier students may be able to evaluate and create without assistance. An average beginner skier in a year-long program may progress through the following skills: understanding equipment, standing up after a fall, sidestepping, boot pressure, balance, pole usage, wedge turns, wedge christie turns, and parallel turns. Progressing through these skills does not indicate mastery. Depending on the student's level of fear and prior experiences, a beginner student may end the year forming parallel turns. Quick learners may return to some basic skills (boot pressure, balance) and work towards mastery of those individual abilities.
Systems thinking can be broken down into three sub-categories. High school students should be at the individual developmental level of the first level. In this level students can identify components and processes of a system. For example, students will identify ecological, economic, political, cultural, and personal processes influencing the skiing industry. The second level is comprised of three abilities; identifying simple relationships among a system's components, identifying dynamic relationships within the system, organizing the systems’ components, processes, and their interactions within a framework of relationships. Initially, these abilities will exist in the ZPD of high school students. By the end of the year, students should be able to map out more complex relationships between all processes influencing the skiing industry without guidance. Additionally, abilities in the third level will enter the students' ZPD. The third level includes recognizing hidden dimensions of the system, making generalizations about a system and identifying patterns, and thinking temporally. Educators should use Bloom’s taxonomy to connect all the processes identified in the system of the skiing industry. Proper scaffolding through Bloom’s Taxonomy will reduce the likelihood of students getting frustrated or experiencing other negative emotions that may inhibit learning.
3.Instructional activity 1
One activity that would help students develop their skiing skills and specifically work on the sub-skill of boot pressure would be skiing with one ski. Students would be instructed to remove one ski and practice making turns down a low-grade slope in both directions. This activity occurs at the apply level of Bloom's taxonomy. Removing one ski forces students to take their current understanding of boot pressure and bring that knowledge into a new setting. Skiing with one ski challenges a student's balance but should not change any of the principles of boot pressure. This activity will improve both boot pressure skills and balance skills. This activity would be best implemented with extensive instructor guidance. If this is the first time a student is practicing skiing with only one ski, this activity will be in the students' ZPD. Students will need individualized instruction to understand what modifications they will need to make to succeed in this activity. Without individual feedback, students may enter a state of frustration or fear that may inhibit learning. Therefore, this activity should be performed in small groups with students at similar levels of skiing ability. Instructor feedback will be valuable because students will not independently understand what modifications will help them succeed in this activity. Individual feedback and attention will also encourage instructors to be conscious of students’ emotions and when they may be getting in the way of learning.
4.Instructional activity 2
One activity that would develop students’ systems thinking skills is a worksheet that guides students through feedback loops for ecological and economic processes impacted by the skiing industry. Feedbacks loops of multiple processes that impact the skiing industry would relate to the second level of systems thinking and would be in students' ZPD. The worksheet should follow Bloom’s taxonomy to properly guide students' thinking up to the level of creating feedback loops. Even with guidance from the worksheet, some students may need additional guidance from the instructor. The worksheet will first ask students to recall parts of feedback loops (remember). Then, in their own word’s students will explain how each part functions and interact to create a feedback loop (understand). Next, the worksheet will provide ecological and economic processes related to creating artificial snow and prompt students to draw a feedback loop that describes the impact (apply). Students will then use these feedback loops to conclude on the ethics of making snow (analyze). Students will then be prompted to consider whether the feedback loops are inclusive of all economic and ecological processes related to making snow (evaluate). Finally, students will be asked to create a feedback loop that describes the ecological and economic impacts of removing trees to create new skiing trails (create). This worksheet will guide students to think through the levels of complexity outlined by Bloom’s taxonomy and improve students' ability to identify dynamic relationships and organize them into a framework. This intentional scaffolding of information will support positive emotions that reinforce learning.