Chapter 6: Assessment in Middle Years Outdoor Education
Josh Ambrosy and Sandy Allen-Craig
Learning Intentions
- Describe different approaches to assessment for learning, as learning, and of learning in middle years Outdoor Education.
- Analyse how assessment can drive curriculum reform and support negotiated curriculum in the middle years.
- Develop strategies for innovative assessment both at school and during outdoor experiences.
- Evaluate how rubrics that transcend multiple tasks can enhance middle years Outdoor Education.
6.1 Introduction to Assessment in Middle Years Outdoor Education
Over a decade ago (Collins, 2011) likened assessment and the associated reporting of it as the ‘tail that wags the dog’ in Australian education. Although assessment in many cases is forced upon teachers (e.g., NAPLAN), you as a teacher can also think about how assessment can help drive forward the curriculum you want to put in place.
Historically, schools often had fewer expectations for how their outdoor education programs contributed to the curriculum in the middle years. Outdoor education electives were typically established to provide students with opportunities to explore themselves and their connection to outdoor environments. However, with an increasing emphasis on academic results and the ‘datafication of schooling’ along with the pressures of a crowded curriculum, schools have begun requiring more stringent curriculum mapping and a minimum number of assessment tasks per hour of instruction, even in outdoor education.
This shift has both positive and negative implications for outdoor education teachers. On the positive side, assessment can be a powerful tool for driving curriculum reform, demonstrating the value of outdoor education to school administrators, and preparing students for VCE Outdoor and Environmental Studies (see Section 4.3.6). However, the requirement to align outdoor education with formal assessment can also be a challenge. Outdoor education lacks a dedicated curriculum in Victoria for Years F–10, meaning teachers must develop their own curriculum and assessment tasks. These must also align with the content descriptions and achievement standards of other curriculum areas to meet reporting requirements, making the task both complex and time-consuming.
This chapter explores strategies for developing a series of assessment tasks that align with the curriculum while also enabling you to drive curriculum reform in your school.
6.1.1 Types of Assessment
As teachers, it is important to think about how you can use different types of assessment for what should be its primary purpose in your outdoor education classes—to support teaching. To support students through their learning of your curriculum, it is important to think about how assessment tasks can have different functions within your curriculum. Assessment can be broadly classed as:
- Assessment for learning: occurs when teachers use inferences about student progress to inform their teaching (formative assessment)
- Assessment as learning: occurs when students reflect on and monitor their progress to inform their future learning goals (formative assessment)
- Assessment of learning: occurs when teachers use evidence of student learning to make judgements on student achievement against goals and standards (summative assessment).
(Victoria. Department of Education and Training (2021).
Activity 6.1 – Types of assessment for middle years outdoor education
Imagine you are teaching a year 8 semester-long introductory outdoor education elective at a school on the Murray River called ‘Participating in Outdoor Experiences’. The learning outcomes of the elective are:
- To help students prepare for and safely participate in a range of outdoor activities.
- To develop strategies for working both individually and as a group during outdoor experiences.
- To examine how minimal impact strategies can be used during outdoor experiences.
During the unit, students participate in a range of outdoor experiences, including:
- Canoeing on the Murray River – Focus on teamwork, safety procedures, and navigation.
- Biodiversity survey – Conducted in local bushland to explore the ecological health of the area.
- Campcraft sessions – Practice setting up tents, cooking with Trangias, and packing for trips.
- Orienteering activity – Developing navigation and problem-solving skills using maps and compasses.
- Overnight hike – Along the Great Dividing Trail near Bendigo, focusing on teamwork and minimal impact camping strategies.
- Riverbank clean-up – Service-based learning activity addressing the impact of human activity on the environment.
The table below demonstrates the types of assessments that students might complete in this unit.
- Label each of the sample tasks using the language from the Department of Education (as, of, for learning).
- For each task, complete PMI analysis:
- Positives of the task
- Minuses of the task
- Interesting observations about the task
| Assessment Type | Task | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Navigation Skills Check | Students participate in an orienteering activity where they navigate checkpoints using maps and compasses. Teacher observations and feedback help guide further instruction on navigation techniques. | |
| Campcraft Skills Workshop | Students practice pitching tents and using Trangias. Teacher assesses their ability to follow instructions and apply skills safely and effectively. | |
| Reflective Journal Entries | After each outdoor activity, students write a short reflection on their personal performance, teamwork, and application of minimal impact strategies. | |
| Overnight Hike Minimal Impact Plan and Evaluation | Students create a plan outlining minimal impact strategies for the overnight hike, followed by an evaluation of their participation post-hike through a trip report. In pairs, students plan a section of walking to include in their project. |
6.2 Developmental Rubrics
Developmental rubrics are an effective tool for assessing student progress in outdoor education as they allow for a nuanced understanding of learning across a continuum. Rather than providing a simple pass-or-fail judgment, developmental rubrics outline stages of achievement, enabling students and teachers to see where progress has been made and identify areas for further development. In the context of outdoor education, developmental rubrics can transcend both practical, environmental and personal components of the curriculum. Developmental rubrics provide clear, measurable criteria that align with learning outcomes, fostering a growth mindset by encouraging students to see learning as an ongoing process. They also enable teachers to provide targeted feedback, making the assessment a tool for both accountability and meaningful learning. In outdoor education, this approach aligns well with the experiential nature of the subject, ensuring that assessment supports skill development and personal growth.
A well-written rubric is more than just a mechanism for assessing students. It can serve as a valuable tool for fostering discussions about student progress, supporting self and peer assessment, and even enabling students to negotiate aspects of their assessment tasks, which can positively impact engagement and agency in learning. Developmental rubrics are designed from the perspective of what a student needs to demonstrate at a particular learning level, rather than focusing solely on the completion of specific tasks. The cognitive level of student achievement in the rubric can be adjusted by varying the complexity of verbs, the tasks, or a combination of both. An example of a developmental rubric is provided in Appendix 1.3.
Activity 6.2 – Generative AI and Rubrics
Generative AI, such as ChatGPT, can be an excellent tool to assist in developing rubrics. However, the tool’s effectiveness depends entirely on the quality of the prompts and information you provide. While it may be tempting to rely on such software to fully automate this part of your teaching, we recommend using it as a co-generator. This collaborative approach ensures that the rubric is tailored to your specific curriculum and teaching context.
Steps to use Generative AI for developing rubrics
- Open a generative AI tool of your choice
Select an AI platform (e.g., ChatGPT) to begin developing your rubric.
- Introduce the AI to your task
Instruct the AI that you want to co-develop a rubric. Inform it that you will start by providing key information for it to learn from.
- Provide essential inputs
Feed the AI with the following details to ensure it understands the context:
- Learning outcomes: Clearly state the desired outcomes for the unit.
- Curriculum descriptors: Include relevant content descriptions.
- Assessment tasks: Share a brief description of the assessment task(s) the rubric will be used for.
(Tip: You can use the information from Activity 6.1 as a starting point.)
- Create a rubric framework
- Select a rubric template (e.g., the one provided in Appendix 1.3).
- Populate the focus areas for your rubric. These focus areas should align with the big ideas of your unit.
- Write a sample descriptor for the “at standard” column of each focus area. Ensure that this aligns with the achievement standards.
- Refine with AI assistance
- Prompt the AI to complete the remaining columns (e.g., below standard, above standard) or refine your initial descriptions.
- Provide feedback to the AI’s output to ensure the rubric is accurate and relevant and ask it to redo tasks until you are happy with the output.
Example Prompts for Generative AI
The following prompts may be useful to complete this activity.
- “I am developing a rubric for a middle years outdoor education unit. The learning outcomes are [insert outcomes]. Based on this, help me create criteria for a rubric with three levels: approaching, at standard, and above standard.”
- “Using the achievement standard [insert text], generate examples of what a student might demonstrate at each performance level for the assessment task [insert task].”
- “Here is a rubric template with focus areas: [list focus areas]. Complete the criteria for the levels below standard, at standard, and above standard.”
- “Refine the following rubric descriptors to align with the Victorian Curriculum achievement standards: [insert draft descriptors].”
6.3 Formative Assessment Tasks
Formative assessment tasks typically serve two key purposes. The first (*assessment for learning*) is to help you and your students monitor learning progress. The second (*assessment as learning*) is to enable reflection on the learning process. While both purposes can be integrated into a single assessment task, it is important to be specific about their intentions and communicate these clearly to students. For instance, you could create a two-sided worksheet, with Side A focused on assessment for learning and Side B on assessment as learning, clearly labelling each and providing corresponding instructions.
Formative assessments should be used in a “data-wise” manner, meaning tasks should be intentionally designed to support learning while also generating meaningful data to guide the overall teaching and learning process. A “less is more” approach is often more effective than routines such as an exit pass after every lesson, which can sometimes become busy work and fail to provide meaningful insights into students’ progress.
It is also important to remember that assessment for and as learning does not always need to be a formal written process. For example, group debriefs in outdoor education are a common and valuable method that can yield rich data for both the teacher and the students to monitor and inform learning. While this type of assessment may not easily translate into a markbook, that is acceptable. Alternatively, students could complete a peer or self-assessment of their participation in the debrief using a rubric if you need to record it formally.
Regardless of the assessment type, tasks should always align with the learning outcomes of the unit and be deployed in a purposeful and measured way. This ensures that assessment supports learning without dominating valuable teaching time.
Case Study 6.1 Logbooks and Journals
A common type of assessment for learning that is used in outdoor education is the use of a student journal or logbook. Such a task can support both assessment for learning as a way of monitoring progress and evaluation as learning to help prompt reflective practice. The advantage of a well-set logbook is that it can be done during outdoor experiences or even on the bus ride home. As many outdoor education classes in the middle years are electives, this can help students to see the relevance of the logbook and task completion.
Logbooks or journal tasks can vary from more open-ended tasks to more structured approaches. We favour the latter, as you can vary the types of responses that students are required to complete whilst also building students’ skills toward studying VCE Outdoor and Environmental Studies, where the logbook is a mandatory component (11.6). A well-developed logbook will typically align to the outdoor experiences you are conducting in your unit. For example, you may have an experience each week during your double period, and a logbook entry for each. Either a developmental rubric discussed above, or a logbook rubric based on the overall application of skills and knowledge written for the logbook, can and should be used to assess the logbook; this helps you shift from assessing the completion of the task to the application of knowledge against the curriculum which is what you will in turn report on. At a practical level, it also means that if a student misses an entry, it doesn’t matter as you are assessing holistically.
Logbook entries do not need to be written or have long written sections. Some examples of logbook entries that we have found work well include:
- A photo essay showing skill development over multiple sessions (e.g., surfing or mountain biking).
- A collage made from beach rubbish with an environmental message.
- A table of observations of local flora during a bushwalk.
- A graphic organiser that analyses the effectiveness of different minimal impact strategies.
- A student-made map using symbols and pictures that shows Aboriginal people’s use and understanding of an outdoor environment.
Note: Although these tasks could be curated into a logbook, they could also be used individually as for learning tasks.
6.4 Summative Assessment Tasks
Summative assessment tasks (of learning) are used to determine what a student has learnt in a unit. In many secondary schools, there are minimum requirements for students to undertake a certain number of Common Assessment Tasks (CATs) that are attempted by all students doing a particular unit or subject based on the hours per week of instruction. Summative tasks can be narrow tasks such as a test or case study sat under exam conditions. Or they can consist of projects and problem based learning that students may work on for some time as part of a unit of inquiry. We argue that the latter is a more holistic way of working in the middle years and is more aligned with the outcomes of outdoor education.
6.4.1 Principals of Effective Summative Tasks
When developing open-ended tasks, there is no single universal method for creating summative assessments in outdoor education. However, the following principles, tested and refined through practice, can guide the development of effective assessments:
- Outdoor Environment: The assessment should be closely tied to a studied outdoor environment. For example, if students have walked the Great Dividing Trail, they could complete a project that showcases their experience and understanding of this environment.
- Time: While the knowledge and skills needed to complete the assessment may be developed over several weeks, the time allocated for completing the task should be bounded. Tasks that require more than a week of class time risk students losing focus and engagement.
- Agency: Students should have a degree of agency within the task. This could involve choosing from a range of questions or projects or even negotiating the task itself through a model like the negotiated curriculum approach (see Section 5.4.2).
- Difference: The project’s focus should vary between students. Having all students research the same question reduces engagement and misses opportunities for diversity in learning (see Section 4.3.3 and the example developmental rubric in Appendix 1.3).
- Differentiation: The task should cater to varying cognitive levels, allowing differentiation to meet the needs of all learners and to challenge students appropriately.
6.4.2 Negotiated Assessment
Negotiated assessment is a student-centred approach that allows learners to have a voice in shaping their assessment tasks while maintaining alignment with the learning outcomes of the unit. This method can foster greater engagement, agency, and ownership of learning, as students are given the opportunity to explore their individual interests and strengths within the framework of the curriculum. In outdoor education, negotiated assessments can vary in terms of their focus, the outdoor activities involved, or the format in which learning is presented.
Variability in Focus
The focus of a negotiated assessment might centre on an outdoor environment that has been studied or experienced by students. For instance, one student may choose to investigate the ecological health of a local river system, while another explores the cultural significance of a nearby mountain range. By offering students options to select the focus of their assessment, teachers can encourage deeper personal connection and engagement with the subject matter.
Variability in Outdoor Activities
Students might also negotiate which outdoor activities are the basis of their assessment. For example, some may focus on the skills developed during a canoeing trip, while others reflect on their experience of campcraft or bushwalking. This flexibility acknowledges the diverse interests and strengths within a cohort, allowing students to highlight their individual experiences and insights.
Variability in Presentation
Negotiated assessment can also include flexibility in how students present their learning. Some may opt to create a visual presentation, such as a photo essay, while others might write a reflective journal, design an infographic, or produce a video documentary. Allowing students to choose their mode of presentation can cater to different learning styles and creative abilities while ensuring the assessment remains meaningful and relevant.
Supporting Negotiated Assessment with Developmental Rubrics
Developmental rubrics are a powerful tool to support negotiated assessment. These rubrics outline a continuum of achievement, making them adaptable to a variety of tasks and levels of complexity. By focusing on the skills and knowledge demonstrated rather than the specific task completed, developmental rubrics provide a consistent framework for evaluating diverse outputs.
For example, a developmental rubric for a negotiated assessment might include criteria such as:
- Understanding of the outdoor environment: Progression from basic descriptions to complex, evidence-based analysis.
- Application of skills: Ranging from demonstrating foundational skills with guidance to applying advanced techniques independently.
- Critical reflection: Moving from surface-level observations to insightful reflections that connect learning to broader concepts, such as sustainability or cultural significance.
These rubrics ensure that despite the variability in focus, activity, or presentation, all students are assessed fairly and consistently. They also provide clear expectations, enabling students to understand the standards they are working towards, even when their tasks differ from their peers.
Negotiated assessment, when supported by developmental rubrics, creates a dynamic and inclusive approach to learning that values student choice while maintaining rigour and alignment with educational goals. This approach not only enhances student engagement but also helps develop critical skills in decision-making, self-regulation, and personal responsibility.
Chapter 6 Summary
This chapter highlights the role of assessment in middle years outdoor education, addressing how it can support both student learning and broader curriculum reform. It explores different types of assessment—for learning, as learning, and of learning—and demonstrates their application within outdoor education contexts. The chapter introduces the use of developmental rubrics as an effective tool for assessing student progress across practical, environmental, and reflective learning tasks, ensuring a focus on growth rather than task completion. Additionally, the concept of negotiated assessment is presented as a student-centred approach that allows flexibility in focus, activity, and presentation, fostering engagement, agency, and differentiation. Through thoughtful design, outdoor education teachers can create meaningful, inclusive, and rigorous assessment tasks that align with curriculum goals while maintaining the experiential nature of the subject.
Reflection Questions
- How can developmental rubrics enhance both teacher feedback and student learning in outdoor education?
- What strategies can you use to balance flexibility and rigour when designing negotiated assessment tasks?
- In what ways can formative assessment (for and as learning) be embedded into outdoor experiences to monitor student progress and reflection?
- How can summative assessment tasks be designed to reflect the practical and experiential nature of outdoor education while meeting curriculum reporting requirements?
References
Collins, C. (2011). The tail wagging the dog? Assessment and reporting. In L. Yates, C. Collins, & K. O’Connor (Eds.), Australia’s curriculum dilemmas: State cultures and the big issues (pp. 185-201). Melbourne University Publishing.
Reid, A. (2020). Changing Australian education: How policy is taking us backwards and what can be done about It. Routledge.
Victoria. Department of Education and Training. (2021). Assessment. https://www.education.vic.gov.au/school/teachers/teachingresources/practice/Pages/assessment.aspx
Zipin, L. (2020). Building curriculum knowledge work around community-based “problems that matter”: Let’s dare to imagine. Curriculum Perspectives, 40(1), 111-115. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41297-019-00096-y
