Day 3: Immersive Branching in Forestry 

The Technique

I was looking to improve engagement of students during times of online teaching to save me from “talking at them.” I was using the Best Forestry Practices: A Guide for the Boreal Forest in Ontario government-issued guide in class to reinforce the lecture and textbook, but it felt like it could be so much more. The course textbook is more general, and this document provided relevance to the region where the students live and study. I wanted to give it more intention in the course while moving it into the study time as a way of “flipping the classroom.”

I took some time to create a set of questions that are tied to forest blocks/locations learners would be assigned in my course. For each forest block, learners need to determine interventions for their site, and I thought the questions could help scaffold complicated aspects of this task. The result of this investment in the development of questions connected to the guide is an interactive application of the text that navigates students in different directions based on their answers to questions relevant to their forest block.

The final result

This Interactive Boreal Forest Guided Planning by DzhamalA is licensed under a CC 4.0 international license

How I Use It

After students have reviewed the ways that the course text will be utilized for assignment and testing, they are introduced to the Best Forestry Practices: A Guide for the Boreal Forest in Ontario interactive guide. I then explain how the guide will be used to help them produce a forest management plan. I provide learners with their forest block. Now we can begin to work with it!

The step-by-step instructions are as follows:

• To begin producing their plan/assignment, students select a number from a hat. This determines the site (forest block) they will focus their interventions on.
• Students are then given the “shape” of their forest block – a GIS file provided by me that includes the location of the block they are assigned.
• Students then begin to “find” and assess the block (i.e., go to it online or visit the site in person).
• Once each student knows their location and their forest blocks state they are responsible for, they are ready to do the branching activity and begin to answer questions contained within it.

To aid learners’ independent use of the [H5P] interactive guide, the guide begins with an interactive video that outlines what they need to do at each step in their plan development within the branching activities provided. This video includes knowledge checks at a few key points to assure the students are ready to start. The rest is up to each learner!

Feedback from Learners

An interactive technique where the students can see the real-world impact of implementing a silvicultural intervention is something I am passionate about. Hands-on learning and relating to real-world experiences always leaves a longer lasting impact in learners’ perspectives and knowledge than mere text work.

In discussions with students that I had presented this to, it became clear that their active involvement and use of the interactive guide would enhance knowledge retention. This discussion sparked a greater interest in finding solutions “outside the box” for local challenges that “hit home.”

A Short Task to Challenge You!

Let see if you have enough information to initiate your holiday plans...

One Final Task

Is this something you can use in your classroom? How might you utilize it? If you share your results somewhere on social media, please let us know by using the hashtag #12tech22LUDay3.

12 Techniques of the Holidays 2022 by Teaching Commons@LU is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.