Benefits of Educational Field Trips

Teachers must find a solution to the question of how to best engage students in the learning process. Field trips are one of the main ways that students can be drawn in to experience learning first-hand rather than by sitting in a classroom.

History of Experiential Education

Field trips fall into the theory of experiential education made famous by John Dewey, who said, "Education is life itself." (http://wilderdom.com/experiential/JohnDeweyPhilosophyEducation.html) Dewey advocated that learning is an active part of participating in the community through guided experiences. According to Dewey's thoughts on experiential education, cleverly crafted field trips can help students have an increased ability to apply and practice what they learn.

Experiential Learning Theory

David A. Kolb is one of the most well-known experiential educators. His learning cycles emphasizes four distinct phases of experiential education. First is the experience, then reflection, then generalizing and then application. Another variation of Kolb's learning cycle is broken into a series of questions: What happened? What is the significance? Now what will I do with this knowledge? (http://www.infed.org/biblio/b-explrn.htm) Crafting this sequence of questions into a field trip can help students draw out what they have learned.

Kinesthetic Learning Style

Field trips heavily favor the kinesthetic learning style, or learning by doing. Many students in the classroom setting who favor this learning style often are unaffected by traditional didactic methods that include reading, lecture or videos. Edgar Dale's Cone of Experience states that "we learn 10 percent of what we read, 20 percent of what we hear, 30 percent of what we see, 50 percent of what we hear and see, 70percent of what we say, and 90 percent of what we both say and do." (http://www.starteaching.com/KimTaylorDiLeva.htm)

Student Benefits

Field trips can inspire students to be excited more about the learning process. Visiting a new place, meeting new people and seeing and experiencing the things they learn about in the classroom provide ways that students can be stimulated by their environment.

Types of Field Trips

Field trips can be focused on almost any subject. For life sciences, discovering the ecological relationships within a local park, lake, or river can be highly educational. History field trips can have students visit local landmarks, living history presentations or old settlements that have been preserved.

References

• John Dewy: Philosophy of Education
• Star Teaching Feature Writer
• David A. Kolb on Experiential Learning

Resources

• Introducing Informal Education