Iganyana Bush Camp

The CCEC needs means of measuring the effectiveness of the Bush Camp Educational Program. Therefore, each school visit to the Bush Camp will end with an assessment activity. Additionally, the EEO may also conduct an assessment activity during a follow up visit to the school. Such a follow up assessment would have the additional advantage of assessing retention of the concepts learned at the Bush Camp. The purpose of any Bush Camp assessment strategy is not to test student ability or performance, but to test the effectiveness of the educational methods and activities being employed by the Bush Camp guide staff.

Methods of educational assessment are varied. Since time at the Bush Camp is limited, a thorough assessment during the program is not advisable, as it would deduct too much time from the students’ Bush Camp experience. However, the EEO may devise means of assessing program success during the program that are not only acceptably effective, but also fun, creative and that reinforce concepts. Below is one possible assessment strategy that could be employed as a conclusion to the Bush Camp experience.

For the closure activity, students may gather on the Activity Deck. In activity group circles, children should first be led by their guide to reflect on what they did and experienced during their stay at the Bush Camp. One way this can be accomplished is by simply asking the children to share their favourite moment from the trip, one by one around the circle. Each child’s contribution will trigger memories from the rest of the children.

After each child has had an opportunity to share, the guide may ask the group now to agree upon the most important concept they learned from their experience. Once they have chosen, the students then create a musical and/or dramatic presentation of the concept to be performed for the other activity groups. Before they proceed too far, the guide should check in with the other guides to see if the same concept is being chosen by another activity group. If so, he should consult with the other guides and his activity group in order to steer one of the groups to another concept or a different aspect of the same concept. When each group is ready, the performances are given, but without introduction, narration or explanation of the concept. The EEO then asks the audience what the performance was about and why it is important.

After this assessment activity, the EEO provides departure instructions and warmly invites participants to return regularly to the CCEC. The EEO then gives departure instructions:

After the vehicles have departed, the guides should meet to discuss the assessment and critique the program in general.

For any assessment activity, the EEO will need to devise criteria by which the success of the program will be judged. In the case of the above activity, the success of the program would be judged by the answers to the below questions:

• Which activities did the students consider their favourites?
• Which concept(s) did the activity group consider to be most important?
• How accurately did the activity group represent the chosen concept?
• How appropriately did the activity group represent the relevance and importance of the chosen concept?
• How accurately did the audience describe the chosen concept and its importance?