#133: Knowledge Links in the Wild

This study explores learning processes in an outdoor experiential learning opportunity to understand how learners may use their prior knowledge in these settings. Grounded in constructivism and generative learning, we operationalized students’ meaning making through knowledge construction links, capturing the links between what students already know and what they are learning via a system of cues and trajectory dimensions. Using qualitative methods, we observed and recorded interactions of students from three sixth-grade classrooms while they attended School of the Wild. Students also participated in follow-up interviews and a writing activity. Findings indicated that while knowledge links in this outdoor environment were similar to those in classrooms documented in prior research, differences included a more robust definition for the function cue, the enactment of elements from students’ media trajectories, and the juxtaposition of prior learning with historical artifacts that problematized their learning task.