Changing Teaching Styles and Leadership

Another moment, on which I have reflected upon, was on the Carnedd’s in Snowdonia. The area in which I am reflecting on was teaching navigation to my group. On departure we set off from the mini bus, and I was hoping to set the group sections to navigate along the route. Having made a route card the previous evening after consulting the group, I thought that this would be perfectly achievable.

However I was under the assumption that the group had been navigating previously with another leader. This was soon proven wrong to me as we set off, as three members of the group had done little to no navigation previously. This left me with the task of teaching them from scratch upon the mountain, causing my timing of the route to be far out.

As I began to teach I realised that I would have to use a range of teaching styles to convey the information. Looking at Mosston and Ashworth’s teaching style spectrum (1986) we can see how there are many different teaching styles which are all useful in different situations.

 

A.)   Command Style

B.)    Practice Style

C.)    Reciprocal Style

D.)   Self-Check Style

E.)    Inclusion Style

F.)    Guided Discovery Style

G.)   Divergent Style

H.)   Individual Program/ Learner’s Design

I.)      Learner Initiated

J.)     Self Teaching Style

Moving from the styles A-E, I managed to teach basic navigation to the group, however it took me most of the day reflecting as we went to start to using all the styles.  I found that to begin with I was using more of the command and practice style, but as we progressed I began to use more of the reciprocal, self check and inclusion styles. 

This in turn made me subconsciously change my leadership style (Lewin, 1930) from a more delegative/participative style where the group would of had more control over their own outcomes to a more authoritarian/ participative style. Where I gave more instructions and had to increase my authority on points of navigation. Because of all the time spent navigating we where two hours later than my route card had suggested are time of arrival would be.

From looking at how this day went in future I feel I should have been more aware that this may have become an issue for the group’s day out. Next time I will be sure to fully gage the group’s navigational experience before setting on the hill, perhaps even getting them to make the route card with me, which in turn would allow me to assess their abilities and cover basics. I think I will also allow more time when writing the route card to allow for teaching time upon the hill and also perhaps change my leadership style to begin with a more authoritarian style which then changes into a participative/delegtive style nearing the end of the day.

References:

Mosston and Ashworth, (1986) The Spectrum of Teaching Styles. From Command to Discovery.White Plains; Longman.

Lewin, K, (1930) Leadership Styles. [online] Available: http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_84.htm [date accessed: 9 December 2011]

Peak Adventure, or just a Bimble?

When we pack our bags and head into the mountains; for many it is for the adventure. Some even hope to find a ‘peak’ adventure, where our risk and competence are evenly matched and the outcome is pure adventure within our capabilities. This is what the Adventure Experience Paradigm by Priest and Martin (1985) sets out in its model.

As we can see from looking at the model it is only one fifth of the outcomes which in which peak adventure can take place. The other outcomes are:

Exploration and Experimentation

Adventure

Peak Adventure

Misadventure

Devastation and Disaster

It is only when our perception is correct that we can stay within the boundary of the ‘Adventures’, however it does not take much to perceive wrong and end up in misadventure or even worst disaster. However it becomes very easy to stay safely within the area of exploration and experimentation whilst leading groups, as the fear of taking the wrong perception and ending up in misadventure can be scary for a new leader such as myself.

Whilst in Snowdonia in October I found myself in a situation that with reflection and feedback from my group I feel I could have handled better to make more of an adventure out of the situation.

The situation was as I led my group up Tryfan in Snowdonia. The weather was not perfect; there was high winds and poor visibility above 600m. However my group was competent and we took the ascent of Heather Terrace up Tryfan. Being a cautious leader that day due to high winds and a more scramble like terrain, I took the lead up Heather Terrace; with my supervisor bring up the rear. We made our way to the top, being careful of the winds upon the summit and then descended via Bwlch Tryfan. 

This I thought had gone ok, and I was pleased at the group’s competence and ability. However I felt that the group were not experiencing ‘peak adventure’ even though the winds had been high upon the summit, where it seemed they entered adventure, this became apparent as the morale of the group lifted as the risk became greater. On the descent though the morale seemed to drop again, and only on afterthought did I realise that my group had slipped back into exploration and experimentation and lost some of their arousal, as their performance was not being pushed enough for them to experience more arousal and head into their optimal zone performance. (Woods, 1998)

On after thought I feel like I could have made the day more challenging for the group, pushing their abilities and mine as a leader. I can see that if I had created a more complex descent perhaps over the Glyder’s this may have pushed their arousal and therefore entering into adventure or even peak adventure. So I future I think I will try to perceive my groups abilities with more focus at the beginning, adjusting the plans for optimum aroused adventure.

References:

Miles, C, Priest, S, (1990) Adventure Education, State College; Venture Publishing.

Woods, B, (1998) Applying psychology to sport, London; Bath Press.

Aims and Goals

During the following year i will be keeping this reflective blog on my experiences as a trainee mountain leader (ML) This is my second year in training and my personal aims and goals are:

• To practice and understand the different types of leadership styles that can be used on the hill and with different groups; with the goal of discovering which style suits my personality in general.
• To fine-tune my navigation so i can be accurate and confident with my location at all times; i will work at pacing, dead-reckoning and nightnav.
• To spend as much time as possible in the mountains and hills to gain real life mountain experience.