Field Trips, Objectives, and Group Work...oh my!

What do these three topics have in common? From my readings this week I have picked up that field trips, objectives, and group work are often over looked or under used by educators. These three items also serve to be valuable learning tools that when used correctly can ensure learning is beyond the bottom rung of Bloom's Taxonomy. First lets learn about field trips.


Why field trips? Don't those cost money, take up valuable time from the classroom and learning, and force teachers to prepare logistical data? So why spend this valuable time money and resources? Because its worth it, being able to see what you are learning about ties it all together. I loved field trips as a student not just in middle or high school but in college as well. My sophomore year my geography teacher took us to lake Erie at least once a month to actually see what we were learning about or what we just learned about. Learning about erosion would not have been as fun if all we did was look at pictures and read. Instead we went out to a bluff and saw first hand the impacts of erosion.

Field trips tie in well in agricultural classrooms. When learning about different career options having students observe first hand gives them a chance to decided where they want to go in life. It opens up doors to their SAE projects and allows for exploration in a new setting. Field trips shouldn't be over used though, they are simply one tool you have in your belt. 

There is more to a field trip then picking a destination, you must first set up the roles you students must play as well as continue learning in the new environment. It is vital to have objectives on your trip, to allow students to explore on their own, and finally to give students the chance to share what they learned by debriefing. 


Objectives, didn't we learn we NEED these? Apparently some times we forget to give our students a road map of daily learning, sometimes we provided unclear directions that lead students to failure. However we view our ability to write objectives its important to remember why we come up with o it. We painstakingly come up with quality objectives to make sure the quality of learning is more important the the quantity of learning. there are numerous websites and aids that can help you write great objectives to steer students down the path of learning to their final destination in your classroom.

Now we all remember that one group project where it seemed like nothing was getting accomplished and no one did their fair share. Some may have more of these experiences than others. I know I have had a few not only in high school but college as well. But we need to remember that group work is important and teaches life skills that we can't in front of the classroom. From problem solving to deeper learning  group work forces students to work together, communicate, defend their ideas, and understand the content to the point that they can teach the concepts to others.

There are some important steps and roles to remember when using group work. You need to take into consideration the size of a group you want, if students should be at the same skill set or different, as well as what restrictions do you have?


All of these topics tie together because they are ways we can improve our student's quality of learning. As a per-service teacher I know I won't have the best objectives, I won't have the most prepared field trips, and my group work won't be at the top of my game. But I will work hard to improve on these areas so once I have my own students I will give them the best I can.


Be sure to check me out on twitter @rachie12rach and instagram @ Rachel Telesz

I had a wonderful weekend at the Lawrence County Teen Council Fall Retreat: Battle of the sexes so check out all the great things we did!