Supporting Educator Learning: Designing, Leveraging, and Integrating Field Trips

• In Event: Making Museums an Integral Part of Formal Teaching and Learning

Abstract

Purpose
Teachers’ role in shaping and integrating the out-of-class learning experiences of their students on fieldtrips is limited (Morag & Tal, 2012). This may be due to teachers’ uncertainty of their role on fieldtrips or of their not having explicit goals for their visit (Kiesel, 2005). Visits to informal institutions (IIs) (e.g. museums, zoos, etc.) or out in nature offer opportunities for students to learn in a multitude of ways. To optimize learning trips should be bridged with the students’ formal curriculum – teacher involvement is paramount to this process (Tal, Lavie Alon, & Morag, 2014). Tal, Lavie Alon and Morag (2014) describe four “high quality” practices for fieldtrips: 1) activity and action; 2) involved teachers; 3) using the environment; and 4) the field trip as a social learning event. This raises the question: how can we provide school teachers and educators at IIs, with their own understanding of how to be mindful of the “high quality practices’ for fieldtrips when creating and enacting out-of-class learning experiences for students?

Theoretical Framework
Sociocultural theory frames learning as occurring when it is social, authentic, and situated within the work environment of the learner (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Brown, Collins & Duguid, 1989; Wenger, McDermott & Snyder, 2002). In our program, teachers are active participants (Lave & Wenger, 1991) as their prior experiences, values, and ideas are drawn upon to construct their learning experiences in the formal and informal places and spaces and the collaborative and interactive conversations that follow, with the guidance of the “mentor,” push the teachers thinking forward and allow for the development of lessons for students.

Context and Methods
We create dynamic situations for educators to learn in similar contexts to those they teach. We place educators in formal and informal places and spaces alongside “mentors” who: 1) provide an immerse learning experience for the teachers; 2) facilitate educators’ active and collaborative reflection of the experience; and 3) support teachers’ as they apply their learning to the design of lessons for students.
This study involved two different programs – a museum/school curriculum course for preservice teachers and museum educators and a professional development (PD) program for teachers. Participants included 20 students in the course and eight teachers in the PD. The authors are participant-observers who documented the programs, conducted focus groups, and evaluated lesson plans created by participants to identify trends. We constantly compared incidents (Merriam, 2009) over the course of each program and between programs to analyze participants’ experiences, learning, and applications of learning.

Results
Three outcomes of the programs were elicited through the analysis, participants: 1) established relationships with the spaces/places; 2) identified interdisciplinary linkages between the space/place and curricula; and 3) generated strategies that leveraged the space/place to provide multiple student entry points and ways of reflecting upon, interpreting, and applying new knowledge.

Authors

• Jenny D. Ingber, American Museum of Natural History

• Roberta Altman, Bank Street College of Education