Reflections and learnings from the ‘Perspectives on learning’ course by Digantar

A foundational understanding, learning, and underlying life-long curiosity is necessary to delve into and be an effective practitioner in any subject domain. The ‘Perspectives on learning’ course offered by Digantar in their Jaipur campus during December 2023, which I attended and participated in, reinforced this. This course is a part of their ‘Bedrock series’ of courses on the foundational disciplines of education.

As practitioners in the space of education we often forget that deep reflections, readings, and getting back to the basics throughout the journey of our work can make it much more meaningful, sensible and effective. This is also because many of us are accidental, and not formally trained, educationists.

We come into this space with a passion subject domain, which we want our communities of students and teachers to be equally passionate, excited and connected with. We then intuitively design learning modules, tools, resources and curricula to support our training, outreach and content.

My passion subject is ecology, nature and wildlife conservation. I believe deeply that these domains are the basis of our life on earth. I am firmly convinced that these should be an important, fundamental and necessary part of school education. I, therefore, started an initiative called Nature Classrooms to address this gap. We all believe and want this of our own subject domains, and work toward this effort in various capacities.

After almost four years into my work, I wanted to step back and engage more deeply with the theories of education, while drawing from the practical experience of working in the field of nature education. The questions that were nagging me for a while included the following.

Was our nature learning framework and pedagogical approach sound in its design and approach for the audience we were targeting? What and how can I draw from concepts in education and theories in developmental psychology to include in my work?

I hoped that engaging in this course would help me unpack some of these questions that were running through my head. The intense five-day course was both grounding and reinforcing. It was designed and planned with opportunities to work in small groups and individually.

Theoretical topics were discussed and debated every day. Additionally, there were readings and short project presentations. The co-learning and interaction opportunities with a practitioner cohort throughout the course was also of immense value.

The classroom readings and compilations that formed the basis of the course were carefully chosen and curated. These were woven into the course content and learnings. The Digantar campus has a vast library of books and reference material relevant to education and the allied fields. This is a space that every education practitioner should carve out time to visit, use and engage with.

I found the course valuable and important as part of my capacity and training journey in the Review field of education. Two of my team members also participated in the course the following year. Based on the learnings and insights from the course we have had discussions as a team and have been developing a common understanding.

We are now able to have a clearer view of some of our framework and pedagogical goals in nature learning. This includes critiquing and asking ourselves more pertinent questions on our processes and approaches.

It is impossible to pack everything that will be useful for an educational practitioner into a five day in-person course. However, ‘Perspectives on learning’ allowed me to step back from the daily work routines. Its processes helped me to reflect and learn important educational fundamentals in a formal- non-formal, academic classroom setting.