What Contribution Can Residential Field Courses Make to the Education of 11-14 Year-olds?

Figure 4 Climbing Snowdon.

Discussion and recommendations

Residential fieldwork has great potential to enhance learning in school science
and other subjects. In this study the teachers readily acknowledged the
opportunities for academic learning. However, although students generally
recognised that they had used or learnt new subject-specific skills few
teachers had planned how to monitor the effectiveness of the learning
opportunities or how to follow them up in the longer term.

Both teachers and students reported that levels of motivation and participation
were very high, particularly where activities were adventure-based rather than
purely academic. In a number of cases the second interviews with the
teachers showed that these positive effects had continued back in school.
This ‘diffuse’, non-subject-specific effect of residential fieldwork will likely ring
true to anyone who has run residential trips but probably needs further
investigation.

Several teachers noted that students’ self esteem was boosted during
challenging activities, especially for students who are more reluctant to take
part in school-based work. Many students surpassed their own expectations
of achievement during the courses, and these achievements were often
highlighted in their feedback.

17

<<   14   15   16   17   18   19   >>

More intriguing information