Hello Class!
After our trip on the walking tour, I was filled with many ideas on what to create my blog post on. I kept coming back to an idea I shared during dinner about going on field trips as a young student, but never learning as much as I did on our visit. I have lived in the Richmond Area for most of my life and did not know most of the information shared on our trip. After leaving our field trip, I had learned more about the city I live closest to than ever before.
My question is how do we make field trips impactful for students? How or what can we do to design field trips that leave students feeling engaged, interested, and educated on the subject of the trip?
Here are a couple of links on the benefits of field trips and how to optimize a trip:
National Education Association: https://www.neamb.com/work-life/how-field-trips-boost-students-lifelong-success#:~:text=%E2%80%9CToday’s%20students%20are%20visual%20learners,to%20worlds%20outside%20their%20own.%E2%80%9D
Education Week: https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/opinion-response-field-trips-are-powerful-learning-experiences/2016/12
These sites provide some insight into the importance of field trips and ways in which to increase the benefits of these field trips. But what can we do to make their field trip as impactful as our walking tour? How can we as educators get students intrigued by the location of the field trip and the content surrounding said trip? What are some options for making sure that students stay engaged throughout the trip?
I’m excited to see your responses! Thanks!
– Emma Holcombe
Hi Emma!
Thank you for this insightful post; I loved the questions you posed as well as the links to the detailed articles.
I too thoroughly enjoyed our walking tour of Richmond. The tour made me appreciate Richmond’s history so much more than I previously had. Although reading Richmond’s Unhealed History certainly expanded my knowledge about the city and intrigued me, something about seeing Richmond’s history first-hand was so powerful and moving.
I remember being so excited in elementary and middle school when my teachers announced we were taking a class field trip, and I want my future students to be just as excited. It’s evident that there are an array advantages of taking student’s on field trips. I’m for sure a visual learner, so actually seeing certain objects in person makes a story so much more believable. I’m definitely nervous about choosing an appropriate field trip location because I want to ensure the place will contribute to student’s learning and advance their knowledge. As a teacher, I think it’s a smart idea to visit the field trip site before taking students there. This gives teachers the opportunity to explore on their own and take note of anything in particular that would be important to emphasize to students. Additionally, instructing students to make predictions about their field trip experience is an effective way of gaining student’s attention and making them excited about their adventure. Teachers can ensure students stay engaged throughout the trip by giving them a clipboard with a piece of paper where they could jot down notes or important ideas. Another idea is to have students speak with their classmates at different points throughout the trip in order for them to collaborate ideas and share their thoughts. After the trip, students should complete an assignment of some sort that instructs them to reflect on their experience.
Greetings Emma! Thanks for sharing these links and bringing these questions to our attention.
Just a few hours ago, as it happens, I overheard my aunt and uncle recounting to my parents how they had once visited a historical site (I’ve already forgotten which one specifically) and saw that a class of boys from St. Christopher’s Episcopal School were there on a loosely structured field trip. About half of them, apparently, appeared to be naturally fascinated by the site and were reading plaques and examining artifacts; while the other half were totally uninterested in the site and were just milling around, talking or doing nothing in particular. And that, I think, is a pretty good example of what one can expect to happen when one sets students loose to explore a museum or historical site! As I wrote in my comment on Alexa’s post last month, it is important to guide students through field trips and give them specific things to do to keep their attention and get them thinking. Of course I am hardly the first person to think this, and both of the articles you linked make similar points.
The most basic and commonly utilized method by which teachers ensure that students actually learn something during a field trip is to provide students with a list of questions, to which they must find answers in the artifacts and plaques displayed and the words of the tour guide. This is the quickest and easiest method for teachers and students alike, but it has the disadvantage that many students will immediately seek out only the information needed to answer each question, copy it down, and pay attention to nothing else.
To engage students more deeply with the material, it might be better to assign them a sort of “research project” with the historical site or museum displays as their sources. The EducationWeek article suggests that students be instructed to take photographs of what they see on the field trip and incorporate these into scrapbooks or videos in the days to come. Likewise they could be encouraged to take video footage of the site and edit it into a mini-documentary, or, in the case of artistically inclined students, to sketch the location or artifacts from life (I personally find that sketching a location or artifact always makes me feel like I understand it much better than if I merely look at it passively). Of course one would instruct students to analyze what they saw and recorded in the same manner as any primary source, starting with the pure sensory information and moving on to interpretation of the evidence (as outlined in the reading “Every Place An Historic Place”). By the end of this process, most students would have a very deep understanding of the field trip site or at least the part of it they chose to focus on, far deeper than any ordinary tourist’s. The only disadvantage is that it would necessarily cause the field trip to take up much class time outside of the actual site visit, both on days prior (when students should be instructed in the period, people or events to which the site pertains, so that they have the background knowledge necessary to understand what they see during the trip), and on days following (when they will be working on their projects).
Hey Emma! Thanks for the questions you posed – I had some of the same thoughts after our walking tour.
I loved the sites you included. Both of them were really insightful and gave me lots of ideas of how to create impactful field trips. My biggest takeaway was preparations before and after the field trip – I never really remember doing pre- or post-trip activities to fully engage myself with what I had learned. I also love the idea of letting the students decide what they want to get answers to. If the students have had the time to think about questions they want answered, they will likely want to spend more time trying to find their answer and interacting with the artifacts/environment. I think that with that, it would be really fun for students to take pictures/draw sketches/journal thoughts and have either small groups or individuals make a 2-5minute presentation about the question they had asked and what information they had found.
I also think that being excited and conducting prior research as the teacher is impactful for students. I’ve had plenty of teachers plan a field trip and not really have any plans with them, and they were boring to me even if the location itself was cool. I have also had plenty of teachers get excited about the field trip and have done lots of preparation to make the field trip fun, and they have been some of the more memorable trips I’ve had. I think the attitude of the teacher can greatly impact the trip, so if you are excited about the trip and the learning, the students will inherently become excited about it, too.
Hi Emma,
Thank you for the resources you shared and for posing this week’s questions! I know we all had a memorable time on our walking tour and are excited about replicating the fundamentals of our experience with our students.
What struck me about the resources that you shared were some of the practical aspects of preparation, like briefing chaperones and reminding students about behavior expectations. I thought that the tip about carefully considering how far away your destination is versus something similar that might be closer to optimize the non-bus time is important, and is an aspect of field trip planning that I hadn’t considered. I think we need to ensure that we can make a strong connection between the place and the curriculum, as I would assume that we’re more likely to get approval from school administration if we can assert which SOLs we’ll be reinforcing. This is important because more than the logistics and planning involved to pull it off, a field trip can be EXPENSIVE! The article that we read in preparation for the walking tour emphasized the fact that any place is an historic place; in reality, we could build upon students’ historic inquiry skills with any location that we visit for a field trip, but a strong connection to content will be beneficial to everyone involved.
The scenario that William described with about roughly half of the students paying attention and the other half mindlessly ambling about on a field trip pretty much describes what I pictured in my head and remember about my own childhood field trips. While we used a graphic organizer and completed a worksheet during our trip to the Valentine Museum, our walking tour was structured in a more fluid way with guiding questions and the opportunity to take notes of our observations. Overall, I like the idea of allowing students to make predictions and develop inquiry-based questions ahead of time to stimulate their curiosity, and I like the idea of allowing students to choose among options after a field trip is over to help solidify connections.
So, I know all of this is true, and that imparting learning should be our number one goal as educators. But can we agree to ALSO figure out a way to ensure that our students have fun? They’re kids! I think it would be really easy for me to overstructure and overplan for expected learning outcomes from a field trip instead of remembering that students learn in all kinds of ways, and some of those ways may not easily translate to whatever graphic organizer I’ve assigned them to complete. Personally, I remember field trips not so much because of what I learned, but because I had fun. Our walking tour was awesome. We saw some “hard history” truths and got to see parts of the city I’ve never seen before. I learned a lot, and yet, I had fun! I think that we can do all the planning in the world to set our field trips up for optimal learning and success, and yet there will be students whose only memorable takeaway five years down the road was that they had fun, and that’s okay because we want students to make the association that learning and fun can go hand in hand.
Emma, thank you for finding great resources for us to read through this week and for your questions to get us thinking – they certainly worked to get my wheels turning!
Sue Anne
Hi Emma!
Thank you for your thoughtful response! I loved our walking tour this past week, it was an amazing way to see the city of Richmond and learn about the area.
I agree, it feels like I went on so many field trips but did not learn much or felt that it was impactful.
I feel like a field trip will only be impactful if the location will be of interest for the student’s and interactive. I know when I was younger, I did not enjoy going to boring museum’s where all we could do was read. It is important to have kids be able to interact and learn at the same time. So first off, we have to make sure the location of the field trip is a great one for the age of student you are bringing there. We shouldn’t be bringing 7 year olds to museum’s where all they are doing is reading.
My next idea, is offering students some place to take notes during the trip. Whether it be a worksheet, just a notebook entry, or so on. That way you know that your students are paying attention to the field trip. Also let the students ask questions and interact with the field trip and information.
One other idea that I have is to have a project about the location of the field trip prior to the field trip! Maybe let the students learn about it beforehand, and to get excited about getting to go to that location.
The resources that you provided are extremely helpful and I look forward to diving deeper into them!
Thank you!
Halle
Hello Emma,
Thank you for your post for this week.
I agree with you concerning field trips taken during primary and secondary school years. Growing up in Bedford County, we took many field trips, but none to Richmond, a town filled with history and education. We did visit Washington, DC, the Virginia Beach Aquarium, and a few different trips to Charlottesville. So the information shared on our walking tour was new to me because this information was not something taught in our school books.
Your question is interesting, and I believe we can make field trips meaningful for students by ensuring their observational skills are improved upon. The trip should also be hands-on, if possible, and it should allow the student access to tools not available in the classroom.
As teachers we should have knowledge of our students and their needs, wants, likes and dislikes, and search for trips that can satisfy as many students as possible while providing an awesome learning experience. We can keep students engaged by asking questions that require them to think while on the trip. The location of the field trip should be researched and connected to the lessons covered in the classroom prior to the trip. We as teachers should have a preview of the trip with nuggets of information for the students to be on the lookout for.
Milton Otey
Hi Emma,
Thank you for sharing your thoughts and providing the links for us to learn more about student field trips! I would have never guessed that field trips lead to better grades, higher graduation rates, and greater income. It is amazing how having opportunities for enrichment greatly benefit students. Many of us shared how doing the walking tour deepened our understanding and appreciation of Richmond’s history. I can’t image how beneficial field trips would be for younger students in their understanding of history and learning empathy.
I liked the idea of looking for local places to visit and thoroughly researching them to make sure that students are able to learn more about the places closest to them. I had never thought about including students in the preparation of a trip. All of my field trips growing up were planned without student involvement and I always enjoyed myself, but I believe there would be another level of enjoyment and satisfaction if we involved students in the planning process. It is really important that we take full advantage of students being outside of the classroom and having opportunities to engage their senses in ways that being in school doesn’t allow. It was really nice reading about how beneficial it is when students have the opportunity to take photos of their trips. It reminded me of the times that my parents gave me a disposable film camera to take on field trips. Something about looking at a museum through a lens made everything 10x cooler. Not only are photos great for memories, but for facilitating the all-important post-field trip debrief. Overall, I think that it is imperative that we as teachers are thoughtful in our planning, so our students’ experiences are maximized.
Thanks again for your post!
Hey Emma!
Thank you for showing us these sites and posing such well thought out questions! I remember going on numerous field trips when I was a younger student, however I never quite understood why we were going on them. The significance of the field trips always felt more like a way to get my class out of the classroom, rather than a fun and engaging way for students to learn. We definitely learned a lot of lessons on the field trips, but they felt random and not necessarily related to what we were learning in class. This shows me that my previous experiences with field trips were not as impactful as they could have been.
One thing I would like to focus on in my own classroom concerning field trips, is dedicating a few days to learning about the topics being covered on the field trip. This will allow for students to have something in their minds that they can then connect to the actual field trip when they are on it. I believe my class would be more engaged and excited for the trip with this strategy in place, combined with asking the students to make some sort of project based on their favorite part of the field trip. I think one of the best ways students remember what they learn is when they get excited about what is being taught/studied. By allowing students to reflect upon one favorite part of the trip, students become more invested in the topic of their choosing. The class would become experts on the topic they choose, and create something they can present to the class (song, video, presentation, poster). I think these pre- and post- field trip activities will make students feel more connected with what they are learning from the trip, and also make them much more interested in what they learn about.
I will also make sure to plan a field trip that I know will be intriguing for my students since I know a lot of information about their interests. This was one thing that my teachers in elementary school never did, and it made the trips extremely boring! Instead of the trip being a fun activity to look forward to, my class was almost dreading certain trips because they didn’t interest us. I don’t want this to be the case with my own class, so I will do my best to research interesting field trips around the area I will be teaching in.
Thank you again for your post!!
Alexa
Hello,
Thank you for sharing Emma!
I hope that when I conduct field trips with my students, I can find ways to make it exciting and engaging. I hope to find diverse and knowledgeable tour guides with interesting perspectives, projects to consolidate the interesting information they learned, and sites that connect to students personally. I was thinking, in the future, that I would have essential questions for my students to answer after the trip. They would be aware of the questions beforehand, would be able to gather notes and examples during the trip, and would possibly be able to collaborate with one other person on the responses afterwards. They could also create a museum exhibit or some other form of presentation that allows one portion of the trip to be researched and presented to the class.
I look forward to seeing other answers in this post!
Ashley
Hi Emma,
I too was born and raised in Richmond so to be able to walk the city and see historic sites like this was such a great learning experience. As I think about field trips from my school years, it seems the trips were perfunctory, and we were only given the tours to correspond with the limited history lessons we were given. But then I wonder if how our walking tour would walk with elementary students, I think it really engaged me in a different way than if I were a young student. When I think of our elementary students, I think field trips that involved more hands-on activities similar to what the Virginia Museum of History and Culture provides is probably the best way to go.
I can see how the field trip must be a continuation of material already presented in the classroom so students are able to make the connection between what was studied to what is right in front of them. After reviewing the links provided and thinking about the questions posed, I couldn’t think of anything else to add to all that was given in the two articles.
In the NEA article, the nine tips were very helpful in planning an impactful field trip but I especially liked the quote from Carylann Assante, “Field trips give diverse and financially-in-need students equal opportunity to experience things outside {the} classroom that their families may not be able to afford,” she says. In the Education Week article, there were a few points that really hit home for me on providing impactful and engaging field trips. The best one to me was having students write thank-you notes to person(s) at the field trip location, school administration for trip funding, or chaperones including specific details. Another suggestion of using virtual field trips if travel to the location is not an option due to distance or other regulation was also given to us by Maggie Creech from the Va Museum of History and Culture.
All in all, I think with great pre-, during, and post- field trip planning you can give students the 360 view of history from textbook to ‘in real life’ so hopefully they will remember the experiences the rest of their lives.
Hi Emma,
Thank you so much for your engaging post!
I too had a wonderful time on the walking tour of Richmond. Having the opportunity to physically stand in areas where historical events took place was incredibly interesting. You can discuss certain concepts in the classroom all day long, but being able to experience them in daily life helps solidify the importance of what we are learning in school.
I feel as though including a pre and post discussion with students concerning field trips is extremely beneficial. Offering students a sheet or brochure of what they should expect to witness on their field trip will help narrow their focus and prepare them. Additionally, I enjoyed the fact that we were assigned two main questions to continuously think about during our trip. In the past, when teachers gave me long worksheets to complete during our field trips, I was so focused on finding the answers to the questions that I had a difficult time remaining present and taking in what I saw. I like the idea of a debrief discussion like we had at dinner because it allows time for students to reflect on what they have learned during their field trip.
Thanks again for your post!
Mimi
Hello Emma!
Thank you for your response and the helpful links. I really enjoyed clicking through all of the resources offered on the sites.
I was wondering this same thing while we were on our field trip because as much as I was enjoying our excursion, I couldn’t help but think of 10-year-old me that would’ve gotten bored in a second (to no fault of our tour guides!! I just had a very short attention span).
I think a couple things could help make field trips more impactful for students. One is proper background information. Have you ever been to a concert with a person you don’t really know so you can’t sing along to the words? That’s kinda how it is for me when I walk into a museum without any prior knowledge. It’s still an amazing time and I am enjoying myself, but I just know it would be so much more meaningful if I had taken the time to learn the lyrics before coming. I think prepping the students before you go on a trip would definitely help them become more engaged with what they are about to see/experience.
Another couple of things that would help increase engagement would be to have them connect what they’ve learned to what they are seeing and find specific topics of interest to the students/providing independent exploring time (depending on age). From what I remembered as a student, the most fun I had in a museum was when I was let loose and able to explore anything that interested me specifically. I was asked to take a couple notes about what I saw and then report back at a specific time. I think this would be a good way to get students to hunt for the material that intrigues them the most rather than requiring them to all write about the same thing.
Thank you again for your thoughts!
Carstyn K