Introduction and Resource Overview

Welcome to Adventures in Recreation and Leisure!  This resource is designed to be used in a course with Nathan (you may be accessing this as part of PRT 152: Introduction to Parks, Recreation, Tourism, and Event Management at NC State University); in a course with another instructor; or put to use on your own to learn about these diverse fields of study.  While this is designed to be a standalone resource, you will benefit most from it if you are engaging in the activities throughout this book with others and finding local examples in your own life and community to draw from.

Essential Skills for Our Adventure

1. Openness to conversation and sharing your personal experiences (and listening to others)

Recreation and leisure fields are people-oriented professions that require a high level of interpersonal skills.  While you may not be learning about recreation to prepare for a career in it, this book and course are going to challenge you to get to know others, learn about their perspective, and share your own background and perspective.

Each chapter will begin with you examining your own experience with the topic we’re exploring and include activities throughout that ask you to engage in conversation and other in-person activities.  Rather than being a “facts-based” course, this book and course is much more about being able to apply concepts we’re learning about and many of these will be interaction-based.

Conversation isn’t easy and, especially if you’re new to college, it can feel like every interaction is like every conversation post-COVID quarantine…

To help you overcome the awkwardness and set you up for a successful semester, please complete the following module:

2. Willingness to give and receive feedback

When you hear the phrase “groupwork”, do you feel a little sick to your stomach?  Unfortunately, many group projects in high school and college can be miserable experiences.  This can be due to a number of factors: unclear expectations from the instructor, poorly written assignment instructions, or (possibly most often) lack of commitment and accountability by all group members.

To help your group experience be successful and maybe even a little fun, Nathan is going to encourage your small group (called an “Adventure Team” in our course) to get to know each, develop communication and accountability tools, and give and receive feedback.

Since you might not have gotten tips or training on feedback previously, please complete this module:

3. Critical thinking and not looking for the “correct” answer

Rather than being a topic area where you memorize formulas, dates, or other facts, recreation and leisure are applied fields where you learn concepts or theories and then put them to use!  I’d prefer you learn a few things really well and hold onto them for life, instead of memorizing a bunch of things that escape your brain the minute our semester ends.

To accomplish this:

1. 1. You’ll first be using this online resource to introduce yourself to fundamental ideas and reflect on your own relationship and perspective on these ideas.  Some of this will include individual assignments and out-of-class activities.
   2. Then, we’ll be doing in-person activities during our class time (many of them recreation-based) that you’ll reflect on with your Adventure Team and document with an instagram post or other “evidence of learning.”
   3. Finally, there will be in-class assessments where you and I will chat about what you’ve learned.

This approach may feel redundant to you – and it is, intentionally!  This will use a strategy called “metacognition” for you to think about your own learning and find different ways to engrain it best (with help from Nathan!).  Please see the following video for more information on this approach, which might help you successfully complete other courses in college in addition to this one: