I have been teaching Navigation for over a decade now and even educate others how to teach navigation to their students. This information will be useful for your own learning and help you provide that knowledge more effectively. With more knowledge and wisdom I’m hoping we get better outcomes with people being safer and epic adventures be had with confidence. The list below isn’t exhaustive and before you teach anyone you should get proper training on a course from a qualified instructor.

Step one – Site selection

In order for people to find growth then need to be challenged but not be put in situations where they cant find success, choose a site with multiple features in close proximity to each other (you will move slowly when teaching/learning) and if those features are linked with features they can follow, tick off or get caught by before they go the wrong way you will find the students will gain more success. Choose a site that has features you can follow to get out of the thick of it easily, high points or tracks provide great resets so they can gain their composure again and solidify basics. If you will be out for a long time or its hot try find an area where you can fill up your water bottles, streams are good features and provide more learning opportunities whether that be drinking risks, survival or conservation for example.

Step two – Have the gear

Once you have selected a suitable site you will need to make sure you have enough gear to get the learning objectives you aim to achieve, to keep everyone safe and comfortable in case of an emergency and the ability to communicate with the outside world. Make sure to have yourself enough for everyone or get those you are teaching to bring a map, compass, pen for writing on map, notebooks. If people don’t have the chance to practice themselves solo, they will find it hard to solidify skills you teach them and without the emergency gear you are putting everyone at risk and that’s not okay even if its a track you know well, or they are your friends.

Step three – Have a plan and progression

You will find a more fluid day makes you feel less rushed and stressed and allows for more to be fit into the day, we are prepared to adapt and that’s part of teaching/instruction but that comes with time. Have a look at the map the night before, identify those obvious points and make a mark on them with a pen on your maps so you can make sure to visit them.

Lay out the day with getting’s intros, gear, safety chats in the morning or first evening, add in some structured breaks, ideally on those highpoints or other orientating features that will reset your groups mind and allow some good rest and easier learning when leaving or learning the next steps.

I find identifying the features of a map is the first step I go to when teaching navigation, I get them to spot things in real life and then we find out what they look like on the map, makes sure to gauge the groups prior knowledge and goals so you can spend more or less time on this. The next step I do is contours which can throw people off, so one of the tools I use is a the blank side of my map, I make a mountain shape, we draw rivers, buildings, tracks, bush etc on it, then we get a ruler and draw areas of equal height with our contour lines in pen. once we have done that, we flatten the map. it goes from 3D to 2D and this often makes a good connection in peoples heads, some may still struggle that’s okay there is many other ways we can get this done on the road.

once you have the features down, start using just the map and features to orientate the map, with some basic nav points along the way to help build understanding, Id do this for a full day if you had the time before adding in compass work, dont add too much.

If they can identify features, locate themselves on a map using three points of data and orientate the map, I think that would be a successful first day for anyone. If you throw in compass work make it short and sweet not big nav legs.

last tip for progression, if you can keep it to three steps for teaching a skill, you will find so much more success, even if its not the whole picture you can add another three steps later but don’t overwhelm people.

Step four – Reflection

People either fall into the category of no reflection and lose that learning or its death by debrief, keep it brief. let them identify what they learnt and what clicked, how they hope to use those skills and you can finish it off with a simple anecdote to encourage them to keep learning, Id rather have their full attention for two minutes then draw blood from a stone for ten minutes.

Once they have learning you could ask them via form or in person what you did well and would they improve anything. do your own reflection as well, what made you feel at ease and in the zone, when did something become hard to teach and you need more depth of knowledge in.

This list again is a simplified look at bush instruction but it can lead to fleshing out a good day in the bush working on navigation, of course there is more to it and you can spend time on many aspects. If you ever need any tips or info please reach out, Id be happy to answer any questions or send you in the right direction.