Area:

The area we used for our second day trip on cross-country skies was the forest Jegersberg, close-by our University of Agder (UIA) in Kristiansand. It offers us huge open fields with many lakes, hills, tracks as well as many unpaved paths. On that day of our ski trip, we also could improve our basic skills on prepared cross-country courses. Jegersberg itself, has several counter lines, which we could used to ski downhill and uphill. Moreover, we spend a longer time on a smaller hill on an open field, to get used to our cross-country skies, especially for the beginners in our Outdoor Education Class.

The role of the (vei)leader:

Our teacher Len guided us throughout our cross-country ski day in Jegersberg. At first, he gave us the opportunity by skiing around freely to get a feeling for the skies and the actually condition of the snow, the tracks and the wax underneath our cross-country skies. After some minutes of getting in contact with our environment, Len moved back to the end of the group and let alternately someone else lead the group. In between that time, he gave single persons supporting hints and helped some group members at difficult spots of our course. It became obvious, that it was impossible to help each one of the group, who had a problem in dealing with one’s own skies or the natural occurences during our way to our stop for the lunch-time.

On the second half of our ski day, Len setted us differnetly demanding task to improve our basic ski skills in skiing downhill from above a small hill. Therefore, he didn’t make a distinction between beginners and advanced or experienced cross-country skiers. By the help of the well-known method “Learning by Doing” we had to practise our balance on our skiies and tried to get more comfortable with this typical norwegian outdoor sport. Our (vei)leader Len stood at a perfect postion to be always master of the situation in case of a crashs or unpredictable happenings. In addition, he was able to motivate the group very easily and support single group members during complicates tasks without letting arise big wating periods for us.

As an effect of his acting as the leader and motivater for the group, the group dynamic increased a lot, so that we pushed each other in spite of some painful falls to their best performance of the day and the group atmosphere developed positively.

The role of the students:

Our leader Len let us oftentimes play freely in the first half of the skiday, whereas we had to fullfill organized task with the help of ski poles or huts on the second half of our trip at the small hill at the edge of the open forest Jegersberg. Both ways of teaching a group increased our skills in doing cross-country skiing.

If you take a look at our motivation level, it was happily, that we supported and helped each other, e.g. experinced skiers gave advises to the beginners, how to get more control of the own cross-country skies. Furthermore, Len guided us into open situations to find ourselves solutions of highly demanding tasks on our way of that ski day. We were somehow responsible for each other member of the group, because we had to finish the course until lunch-time together as a working team. That’s why we had a great progress in our group dynamic. We always tried to have a look at the weakest member of the group and worked together as a well-organised team in several parts of the whole group.

My personal comment of the ski day:

To come to a conclusion of this ski day, I would say, that we had on the one side a great possibility to improve our skills on cross-country skies and on the other side to learn more about group dynamics and the strenghten and weaknesses of the single participants of our ski trip. Our (vei)leader Len gave us a couple of impressions, how to lead a group by fitting his leadership to the different natural and human circumstances. Although I have some experiences in Alpine Skiing and was two days cross-country skiing, I learned a lot of new techniques to improve my skills in cross-country skiing