Power Up Your Field Trips!

Many classes go on field trips - to a farm - to the zoo - art museum - to an historic site -.  For too many classes, this is a day for fun, an escape from school.  And sadly, teachers go along with it too.  Some years ago, I did my masters' research paper on field trips and I went around with many classes of students, from all different kinds of schools and all different age students.  Most classes went for fun and surprisingly the site docents didn't do very much either to make it an learning experience.  The result of my research ended in providing field sites and teachers with an instructional model so that these excursions can be powerful learning experiences.  In our organization, Learning Exchange, we use this model for our summer school field trips.
     I also want to mention that some schools cannot afford the cost of transportation and admission to some sites.  In many cases, representatives from the site will come to the school.  Also, if nothing else works, we now have internet access to a number of national sites that offer field trip experiences.  All field trips require teacher preparation.  These can be powerful learning opportunities.  Make the most out of it.

Hope the following model is useful to you.  Offer your opinions below in Comments.
                                                                                                                                     Pat Hinske


                                                   Field Trip Instructional Model

Field Trip Organization

Teacher Planning	Before	During	After
·   Pre-visit desirable, but not essential ·   Conversations with Site Personnel  Guided/Unguided Teacher materials from site Student Activity ideas – Locate a pre-reading selection. Opportunity for students to ask questions during the experience. ·   Transportation ·   Chaperones ·   Other logistics	Administer a pretest with basic background knowledge and key vocabulary.   Background information     From Site     From websites     Pre-reading selection            about site Develop Lesson Plan Important vocabulary and major concepts Form questions with students to discover or ask about on the site. Develop observational purposes/tasks for the “During” phase.	All students should have an observational task that engages their attention and for which they are held accountable.   Consider pairing students together during the trip.   Tasks should have “differentiation” in mind.  Plan tasks at about 3 levels (because of different ability levels).  What all students should observe/ What some students should observe  What all students would like to find out or learn more later.	·   Share/discuss observations that may include conversations in class or at home. ·   Review key vocabulary and concepts. ·   Collect documented observations. ·   Share students’ personal perceptions, attitudes, thoughts or viewpoints about the site. ·   Share questions students may offer about what else they would like to learn. ·   Administer post-test and measure differences in scores.