Cooperative Learning & Field Trips: AEE 412 Weekly Writing #4

So this past week has been crazy, we turned in our first lesson plan, our first unit plan, and our teaching lab was "our first day of school," and I'm sure I'm not the only one who's thinking that there is going to need to be a steep learning curve between now and January. We're all fully experiencing the "Doing to Learn" aspect of agricultural education as we attempt to learn how to prepare lesson plans, unit plans, and objectives (oh my!) by writing our first drafts, a lot of us have agreed this fall is essentially trial by fire. I think one of the things that worries us the most is we know what we want our final products to look like - we know what the ideal classroom will look like and how it will run and we know that we want our students to always be learning and engaged; we want to use multiple modalities to reach the multiple intelligences of our students and challenge them to higher orders of thinking - but how do we do that all the time while increasing the variability in both our content and teaching methods?

Two of the ways we can do this, and two of the ways I'm now thinking are the hardest for teachers to implement is cooperative (group) learning and field trips. Based on our readings and past experiences in classes, I think we all know how field trips and group learning can go either really great or really bad - as a young student I loved trips to the Academy of Natural Sciences to learn more about biology and evolution (what kid doesn't love dinosaurs?) and I love working in groups where you can build off of each other's strengths. But I also know how annoying it can be as a student when everyone in the group does not pull their weight or when you go on a field trip and the guide's tour is putting you to sleep and you have no reason to stay engaged (no activity to complete, no quiz, etc.) What I am starting to learn is that the reason these strategies are used effectively in a classroom far and few between is because of the logistical nightmare these can become.

How do you decide which students to pair together? Do you assign roles or have the students choose? How big of a group is too big? (Readings suggest 2 or 4 students, allows for pairs) How do you keep students engaged during field trips? Do you have well planned activities/assignments pre-trip, during trip, and post-trip? Have you figured out all the logistics for planning a field trip? (Administration approval?)

These are just the tips of the iceberg when it comes to what a teacher has to worry about when utilizing either of these two teaching techniques, but when used effectively they create great learning opportunities that fit well into the full three-circle model of agricultural education. For example, you are teaching a small gas engines course. In groups of four, you have students work through the processes of identifying the parts on a engine, disassembling and then reassembling the engine, and finally trouble-shooting the engine as a final assessment. Not only have your students worked well together because they were fully engaged in the project, you taught your students how to work together, how to solve a problem using critical thinking, and provide them with real world applications because if they were working in a mechanics shop they would probably not be working solo on a project (you may have also set yourself up with a great Small Engines CDE team for that extra outside the classroom enhancement).

Just make sure your classroom doesn't end up like this

That is just one great example of how cooperative learning can be used in an agriculture classroom and when used effectively it enhances your curriculum, not only teaching your content but enhancing the real world applications of your content and providing your students with opportunities to gain the interpersonal skills they need in their future careers.


Next example, you are teaching an environmental science course and are teaching about forestry and wildlife. You can only teach your students about the different kinds of plants or wildlife for so long through powerpoint lectures. A great field trip would be taking your students to the local environmental/nature center, town park, or even a well-kept section of woods (this may even be on school property). This could be a great field trip but if it just becomes a hike in the woods it will only be great for some students and may not result in the learning opportunities you want. But if you present students with the identification and basic information before the trip, provide them with detailed pictures of the location (maybe a virtual tour if possible), engage with a local wildlife agent/expert who can lead a tour of the area and present the desired engaging content, and then culminate the experience with a project the students present upon returning, engaging in reflection on the trip and presenting knowledge gained, you can create an amazing field trip experience.

Too often I think that teachers (all teachers, not necessary ag. teachers) forget that a field trip does not have to be a huge trip that requires buses to a big museum, it can be a hike to the pond behind the school or to the veterinary clinic in town, as long as the students are engaged and that there is connections between content and the experience before, during, and after the trip.

Field trips and cooperative learning can be great education additions to the classroom and I can't wait to experience my first trip with my Tri Valley students next month to the National FFA Convention in Louisville, Kentucky, and hopefully to some different ones this upcoming spring. My upperclassmen will be going on a few short field trips to the forest land on the school property to learn about proper forest stewardship, incorporating service learning and some wildlife habitat construction and I can't wait to see how that turns out (successful hopefully).

To get the ball rolling on some ideas for field trips in your classroom, or if you're location bound and need to bring a field trip to you, I found a great link with resources for various virtual field trips for teachers: http://www.theteachersguide.com/virtualtours.html

Get your kids in groups and start planning some happy, engaging field trips!