Supporting outdoor inquiry learning (SOIL): Teachers as designers of mobile-assisted seamless learning

Extending teaching beyond the classroom walls has been known for its potential to promote inquiry learning in various disciplinary domains. Current technologies can enhance these benefits, especially by enabling supports for seamless learning between contexts. But even without technology, teachers tend to refrain from implementing outdoor inquiry due to the many complexities involved. To address this challenge, a design-based research (DBR) was employed to develop and explore a teacher professional development (TPD) model for supporting teachers in designing TEL environments for outdoor inquiry. The study included two exploratory iterations, both implemented within TPD programs comprised of three stages (teachers-as-learners, teachers-as-designers, teachers-as-enactors). Analysis of the TEL environments' teachers designed in the first iteration revealed insufficient supports for students' seamless learning. Based on these findings, we developed the Supporting Outdoor Inquiry Learning (SOIL) guidelines to support teachers in designing seamless flows of activities for learning within and between four dimensions: scientific practices, outdoor learning, physical settings and social activity structures. Findings from the second iteration, in which the SOIL guidelines were embedded in each of the TPD stages, indicate that they enabled teachers to productively analyze and design TEL environments for outdoor inquiry.