Risk Management in the Outdoor Education - Coursework Example

The Development of Risk Table of Contents Task 3 Task 2 7 References 11 Bibliography 14 Task Outdoor learning offers an opportunity to continue the education away from the classroom walls and educational institute. It enables students to participate in different outdoor activities that facilitate free flow of information between individuals and so enhance the overall knowledge of students both theoretical and practical. Data and information collected through outdoor learning is a rich source of information. Outdoor learning involves various external learning processes that involve fieldwork, adventure education as well as other community projects for enhanced learning (Taylor, 2012; Rosaleen, 2012). A properly organised fieldwork enables learners to develop their competency level, skills and knowledge that further improves the value of classroom education. Due to the outstanding learning nature of the outdoor education, it is more likely to have a positive impact on the learner’s experience. On the other hand, outdoor education involving adventure gives a more practical experience to learners, which further enhances their learning process for better cognitive development (Rickinson, & et. al., 2004). Contextually, Management Information System is a process that involves collection of data and information through different sources and storing. The relevant data and information is further utilised for various decision making process to increase the effectiveness. The outdoor learning process improves the level of knowledge of learners and information gathered throughout the learning process assist in making various decisions effectively. For any organisation, management information system plays a crucial role, as it is the major source of all the relevant information. Information system ensures that data collected reach its required target and assists in strong decision-making. The system is responsible to meet the information need of each individual, groups as well as management of the organisation (Oz, 2008; Alcami & Caranana, n.d.). Outdoor learning in schools allows students, directly connect with the natural environment. Improved access to environment has a positive health and environmental benefits on students and their risk making assessment. Outdoor education improves the learning process to a considerable degree. Outdoor learning helps to enhance self-concept that leads to improved self-efficacy. Learning combined with natural environment enhances the self-confidence of learners as well as results in spiritual development. On the other hand, it facilitates team bonding as well as cooperation among individuals that enables to maintain interpersonal relationship within the organisational setup. Outdoor education is likely to develop a positive attitude of individuals towards education and knowledge management. Moreover, participation in the outdoor activities develops and modifies the behaviour of individuals that further encourages the learner to take more responsibility (Northfolk Country Council, 2009). An outdoor education experience involves several risks and so safety is one of the major concerns before planning outdoor learning. It is the responsibility of the educator to ensure the safety of the learners. Some of the risks involved in outdoor educations are unavoidable and in this context, perceived risk defines the perception of the learner regarding risk. On the other hand, actual risk is the risk faced by the learners in outdoor learning process. Moreover, if the experienced and perceived risks are similar it implies that the learners has properly analysed the risk involved. The risks involved in the outdoor education not only improve the personal but also enhances the leadership qualities of individual (Barton, 2006; Priest & Gass, 2005). The increased challenges may expose learners to various hazards that are likely to produce a negative result from the outdoor learning process. Some of the other outcome of the outdoor learning involves physical injury, stress and other serious injuries that is likely to have a negative impact on the overall learning process. In order to minimise the risks involved in the learning process, the instructor must possess the ability to identify the potential risks involved in the outdoor adventures (Gilbertson, 2008). The instructor might take steps to mitigate the risks involved for better management. In order to reduce the risk involved in the outdoor learning it is the responsibility of the instructors to select an appropriate location for achieving the main objective of the programme. This helps in reducing environmental as well as social impacts. Implementation of the risk management strategy ensures minimisation of the overall risks involved in process of outdoor learning. Risk management system of outdoor education involves “risk identification”, “risk assessment”, and “risk reduction” (Parkin & Blades, 1998). Risk identification can be defined as a process to identify and analyse the dangers and hazards involved that are more likely to cause accidents or injuries. The factors to be considered while identifying the risks are “participants”, “equipments” and “environment” (Parkin & Blades, 1998). The assessment of the risk involved in the learning process depends on the probability and the degree of risk involved. An evaluation of the risk involved depends on the ability and experience of the leaders. A leader plays a crucial role in analysing the potential risk, motivates the team members and develops self-confidence among learners. Moreover, risk reduction involves various strategies that can be implemented to minimise the risk and dangers involved. The amount of risk can be reduced by disclosing the nature of outdoor programmes and informing learners about the potential risk involved. It is likely to increase the participant knowledge about the outdoor learning programme and guide the learners to face the risk and hazard involved (Dickson & Gray, 2012; Stremba & Bisson, 2009). The safety policies as well as guidelines should be designed according to the risk involved to ensure proper safety of learners. Staff training can be provided to the instructors so that they raise awareness among learners regarding various risks and ways to overcome. Risk management plan should be designed in such a manner that assists the instructors of the outdoor programme to develop and implement strategies that is likely to reduce the number of incidents. It is noted that learners are unaware about the risk involved in outdoor learning (Attarian, n.d.). Therefore, it is the responsibility of the educators to provide information to ensure safety of learners. The learners should be provided with various necessary equipments for example helmets, footwear’s, rope and other items those are essential to protect them from various initial risks involved in the outdoor adventures. The risk management strategies designed by the instructors should be practical as it has a greater probability to reduce various risks involved in the outdoor learning process. Therefore, the instructors need to analyse all the above-mentioned factors before designing proper risk management plan. This is essential for maintaining the safety of the learners (Parkin & Blades, 1998). Task 2 Risk management in the outdoor education is essential to ensure the safety of learners. The damage or loss involved in outdoor education is mainly in terms of physical injury. Therefore, for this reason it is essentials for the educators or the instructors to take all the necessary actions as well as measures to implement the safety measures. The outdoor programmes or the activities involve different level of risk and hazards with respect to the activity or the condition in which it is performed. Educational initiative includes outdoor adventurous activities in the learning process, which helps in personal as well as social development along with raises environmental awareness. However, the benefits of outdoor learning and adventurous programmes have been reduced due to a number of accidents involving of schoolchildren. An accident occurring in outdoor programmes has a negative impact and has a potential to reduce participation among the learners. Moreover, it also implies negligence on the part of risk management (Hodgson & Berry, 2011; Knight, 2011). The “Lyme Bay tragedy” of 1993, in which four students had died indicates that the safety precautions taken by the instructors of the adventure programme were low. The main reason behind the occurrence of the incident was that the instructors as well as leaders of the teams failed to provide sufficient amount of care to the learners. The outdoor leader plays a crucial role in guiding the team members while carrying out the outdoor learning programme. It is the responsibility of the outdoor leaders to ensure proper safety of the students so that it has a positive impact on their learning (Martin, 2006). Apart from enhancing the quality of overall experience, the leaders are also held responsible to ensure protection of natural environment. The “Lyme Bay tragedy” also indicates carelessness on the part of the leader. The risk management system of outdoor adventurous programme is designed in such a way that it enables the leaders to identify the potential risks involved. In order to minimise the amount of risk involved in the outdoor programmes, improved laws and regulations is likely to play a crucial role in improving the safety standards. Apart from this, providers of the outdoor learning must possess the ability to identify the cause behind the accidents and implement the required measures to ensure the safety of learners. The accidents occurring during outdoor learning programmes are mainly due to the type of dangers (Bilton, 2010). The incident of Lyme Bay, involves human hazards for example lack of leadership, poor quality of equipments, weak analysis of the risks involved. Some of the environmental risks involved were sea and climate condition and other natural hazards. The probability of accident was greater due to the combination of natural risks along with human hazards (Thomas & Raymond, 1998). The tragedy of 1993 has raised awareness regarding the issue of safety and this has further resulted in the development and implementation of the “Activity Centres Act 1995” as well as “Adventure Activities Licensing Regulations 1996”. With respect to the regulations implemented the organizers of the adventure programmes for students below 18 years of age, are required to get hold of appropriate licence in order to continue the respective operations. The “Health and Safety at Work Act” of 1974, ensures that the instructors or the teachers take sufficient concern of the safety as well as health of themselves along with the participants of the adventure programmes. The improvement in various legislations after the tragedy of 1993 has resulted increase in responsibility of the instructors with respect to “Health and Safety at Work Act”. On the other hand, the educational institutes’ hires organizers of outdoor programmes and results in the shift of liability from the educational centres to the providers. This also implies transfer of responsibility to the organizers that is they are responsible to ensure proper safety of the students. The possession of legal license has made it simple for the educational centres to identify the authorised outdoor programme organizer. Apart from this it is the responsibility of the educational centres to have proper information about the various regulations implemented to minimise various risk involved in outdoor programmes. In order to reduce the amount of risks involved in the outdoor education a risk assessment is essential. It is the process carried out by the instructors or leaders to identify the potential risks involved in the outdoor activities. The leaders of the programmes should certify that all the learners are well aware of the instructions with respect to safety and health. To avoid the incidents in outdoor programmes, training is provided to the participants as well as the instructors. The risk assessment programmes also involve identification of the individuals or groups at risk. The assessment involves the learners, educators as well all the members who are affected by the risks. The tragedy of 1993 has raised awareness among the organizers as well as the instructors to analyse the strengths and weakness of the participant members. This will further assist to design proper strategy to ensure safety of the members. Moreover, the implementation of appropriate safety measure is a crucial factor in order to analyse the success or failure of the effort to minimise the risk and to ensure proper safety. The changes in safety and health regulations has also resulted implementation of “hierarchy of controls”. The hierarch of control involves for example to change the method of performing tasks, providing additional information’s and extra protective equipments like wetsuits and many more. The amount of risk depends on the nature of outdoor learning programme. On the other hand, risk is considered an integral part of the overall learning experience. The organizers of the outdoor programmes are required to work with respect to the safety and health legislation as implemented, as well as the educators and the leaders of the teams should possess sufficient knowledge about the risk management system. The “Young Person’s Safety Act” of 1995 as well as the licensing act and other regulations were implemented to extend the duty and responsibility of the organizers towards health and safety of the students (Hanna, 1991). References Alcami, R.L. & Caranana, C.D., No Date. Introduction To Management Information Systems. Information In The Company. [Online] Available at: http://www.uji.es/bin/publ/edicions/s63.pdf [Accessed March 26, 2015]. Attarian, A., No Date. Risk Management in Outdoor and Adventure Programs: Scenarios of Accidents, Incidents, and Misadventures. Human Kinetics. Barton, B., 2006. Safety, Risk and Adventure in Outdoor Activities. SAGE. Bilton, H., 2010. Outdoor Learning in the Early Years: Management and Innovation. Routledge. Dickson, T.J. & Gray, T.L., 2012. Risk Management in the Outdoors: A Whole-of-Organisation Approach for Education, Sport and Recreation. Cambridge University Press. Gilbertson, K., 2008. Outdoor Education: Methods and Strategies. Human Kinetics. Hodgson, C. & Berry, M., 2011. Adventure Education: An Introduction. Taylor & Francis. Hanna, G., 1991. Outdoor Pursuits Programming: Legal Liability and Risk Management. University of Alberta. Knight, S., 2011. Risk & Adventure in Early Years Outdoor Play: Learning from Forest Schools. SAGE. Martin, B., 2006. Outdoor Leadership: Theory and Practice. Human Kinetics. Northfolk Country Council, 2009. Early Years Outdoor Learning. A Toolkit For Developing Early Years Outdoor Provision. [Online] Available at: http://www.schools.norfolk.gov.uk/view/NCC105915 [Accessed March 26, 2015]. Oz, E., 2008. Management Information Systems. Cengage Learning. Parkin, D. & Blades, G., 1998. Risk Management And Outdoor Education: A Practical Approach To Ensuring Positive Outcomes. Abstract. [Online] Available at: http://www.projectnatureed.com.au/web%20library/Risk%20Mgmt%20and%20OE.pdf Priest, S., & Gass, M.A., 2005. Effective Leadership in Adventure Programming. Human Kinetics. Rickinson, M. & et. al., 2004. A Review Of Research On Outdoor Learning. National Foundation For Educational Research And King’s College London. [Online] Available at: http://www.field-studies-council.org/media/268859/2004_a_review_of_research_on_outdoor_learning.pdf [Accessed March 26, 2015]. Rosaleen, J., 2012. Outdoor Learning: Past And Present: Past And Present. McGraw-Hill Education. Stremba, B. & Bisson, C.A., 2009. Teaching Adventure Education Theory: Best Practice. Human Kinetics. Taylor, C., 2012. Advanced Outdoor Learning - Creating A Whole-School Culture. Lulu Press. Thomas, S. & Raymond, C., 1998. Risk And Provider Responsibility In Outdoor Adventure Activities. Teacher Development: An International Journal Of Teachers Professional Development, Vol. 2, No. 2, pp. 265-281. Bibliography Bunting, C.J., 2006. Interdisciplinary Teaching Through Outdoor Education. Human Kinetics. Davis, G.B. & Olson, M.H., 2001. Management Information Systems. Tata McGraw-Hill Education. Ewert, A.W., & et. al., 2014. Outdoor Adventure Education: Foundations, Theory, and Research. Human Kinetics. Read More