Field Studies

What are field studies?

• Field studies are learning experiences outside of the classroom. Field
studies enable learners to personally gather and analyze data of their
own context. Field trips can be done within the school campus, the
school vicinity, in a local museum, and many other places which last for
several hours.
• During field studies, learning takes place in a reality-based context
rather than mediated by videos or books. It gives learners a taste of the
outside world which allows them to clearly see what happens in their
community. The optimum benefit of field studies for teachers is that it
allows the learners to target wide range of learning competencies. It
also allows teachers to employ authentic tasks.
Field trips vs Field studies
• Field trips usually happen in a long distance trip such as going to
national museums or any other related places, it is mostly for learners
to obtain first hand by observing places, with a little bit of recreational
purpose or sightseeing.
• Compared to Field trips, field studies highlight more student
involvement because the learners are directly involved in the
planning, implementation, and assessment of the activity.
Why use field studies?
• It provides experiential learning. Field studies offer an opportunity to witness
objects and events not accessible at school. Direct contact and observation
encourage more concrete learning experience than merely showing videos or
images.
• It targets specific skills and knowledge. Being able to experience things provides
learners an opportunity to practice skills and appreciate values that cannot surface
elsewhere.
• It strengthens schema. The experiences in the field stimulate higher
understanding and appreciation of previously learned concepts by means of
validation.
• It motivates values development. Exposure to a phenomenon stimulates
appreciation and concern for the visited event or place.
Challenges in field studies
• Curriculum alignment. One of the most defeated purposes of field
studies is its curricular relevance. Sometimes, the curriculum aspect is
replaced by leisure engagement. To ensure curriculum alignment,
teachers must thoroughly plan and execute the desired learning
outcomes before any other purpose.
• Lack of understanding of field studies. Before conducting the activity,
teachers must ensure that their learners have fully understood the
nature and purpose of field study. Failure to do so can contribute to
the downfall of the activity. Hence, as part of the preparation,
teachers should teach the essential kick-start concept to the learners.
• Costly. Financial requisite is the biggest problem in this teaching strategy. This is
also the reason why teachers tend to engage in virtual field studies rather than
actual site visits.
• Preparation Time. Field studies require much time, from preparation up to
classroom discussion and assessment. While it is very important, it is also a fact
that it could interrupt other teaching schedules. This now anticipates for the
necessary adjustments in teaching hours and topics.
• Safety. This is the most debated issue. In recent years, we had witnessed various
events where students safety became a talk of the town. This resulted in the
passing of government and institutional policies. Recently, DepEd lifted the
moratorium on off-campus activities and implemented new guidelines that adhere
to K-12 demands. To ensure safety, all schools must abide by its provisions.
What to keep in mind when planning and
doing Field Studies.
• Awareness. Teachers have to condition the learners before the actual
visit. Teachers need to point out the purpose, the dos and don’ts
during the visit, and the assessment part. Having a prepared mind
comes the responsibility and accountability.
• Engage. The most significant factor that teachers need to highlight is
student involvement. They have to plan out every detail and
experience that the learners need to undergo through.
• Metacognitive Learning. The excitement should not stop on the site
visit itself. The most important part still is the deepening and valuing
of knowledge and skills learned from experiences.
• Build upon. Curiosity signals effective and motivational learning. To
start up the curiosity among learners, teachers must conduct prior
research on the environment or event that they have to visit.
Imposing trivial questions and supplementing information during the
conduct of study augments interests and encourages deeper learning
among the learners.
• Illustrate. Never fail to integrate ideas in real life. The integration
could happen during the site visit or inside the classroom. Learners
should be able to see the applicability of learned knowledge so that
they can successfully live what they have learned.
• Assess. As part of the educative process, it is relevant to ensure that
the learners have gained the desired competencies and knowledge.
This could be done through effective, meaningful, and aligned
assessment activites.
Field Study Tool Kit
• The success of any activity greatly depends on the extent of the
teacher’s preparation. Teachers must know how to create their own
data-gathering tools to be used by their learners. Here are some
examples of data-gathering tools and data interpretation tools.
Data Gathering Chart(Sample)
Location
(room in the house, exterior
view, section of landscape, etc.)
Observation
(artifact, visual detail, spatial
relationships of specific
elements, etc.)
Why significant or noteworthy?
(links to larger historical
context?
Reveals time frame of
origination?
Contradicts expectation?
Denotes an adaption? Confirms
an interference?)
 Hilda Taba’s Cognitive Tasks:
Interpretation of Data
Steps Question
1 What did you notice? See? Find?
What differences did you notice?
What similarities did you notice?
2 What do you think might be the
cause of….? The effects….? What
might we infer from…?
3 What makes you think so? How
do you account for that?
4 What could you say generally?
What general statement could
you make?
Function To develop the skill of
generalizing by processing data
and arriving at conclusions and
generalizations.
Rationale
To provide an opportunity for
students to enumerate items
To provide an opportunity for
students to verbalize cause-and-
effect relationships and inference
To give students the chance to
state reasons for inference
To give students the opportunity
to generalize about the
relationships they see