Experiential Learning: Field-Based Learning

What is called for is a more thoughtful style of instruction that grows naturally and positively out of our continuing experiences with students and our reflection upon those experiences--a style that is more attentive to the way learning actually occurs in the real world away from the contrived environments of our schools.

. . . But there are many pitfalls with this--for example, a student-produced magazine where the intended purpose is to improve students' writing skills through motivating them to polish their work because it will have an audience. And that makes sense. In reality, however--and this is the voice of experience--the pressure of producing the final product becomes so intense that the potential of the idea is undermined. Students who write poetry will turn out several poems. Those who are facile with cameras take photographs. Inferior work is simply rejected. The magazine then goes to the press. And in honest hindsight, one finds that not a single student is actually writing better as a result of the project. Those whose writing is poor have been rejected again instead of being worked with to make the piece publishable. Those who write reasonably well have not been stretched at all. . . . Those who do not write at all have evaded the task again by taking pictures or selling ads.

--Elliot Wigginton, The Foxfire Approach

"Learning by doing"--it is not a new idea; it was espoused by Dewey at the turn of the century and has reappeared in a variety of reform movements since, as an effective means of engaging students' interests. According to these teachers, students often pointed to their field-based learning experiences as their favorite part of school. Even among students who tend to have the greatest discipline problems in the classroom, experiential learning activities were enjoyed and valued. Teachers explained that experiential learning programs can be a motivating factor for all students, including those who are often hard to reach because of the sense of responsibility the programs instill.

Experiential learning is a significant part of each reform program discussed within this chapter. A glance at the guiding principles and philosophies of the programs illustrates its importance:

• The Coalition of Essential Schools
  The governing practical metaphor of the school should be student-as-worker rather than the more familiar metaphor of teacher-as-deliverer-of-instructional-services.
• Foxfire
  Work is characterized by student action, rather than receipt of processed information. Connections among the classroom work, surrounding communities, and the real world outside the classroom are clear. The content of all courses is connected to the world in which the students live.
• REAL
  Work in the REAL program is characterized by student action rather than by the student being the passive recipient of processed information. Connections between classrooms and the communities beyond the classrooms are clear. The class goes to the community and vice versa.
• City/Community-as-School
  The primary element of school programs should consist of placing students in the real world as interns.
• Service Learning
  Regardless of whether students serve at the school or in the community, students should be engaged in real and meaningful situations. They should be given supervised opportunities to test out theories by carrying into action their ideas in the community.
• The Center for Collaborative Education
  Schooling should consist of active learning situations with student-as-citizen and teacher-as-coach together engaging in external learning experiences.

• developing skills
• exploring a career
• establishing connections with the community
• having a place in which to contextualize and apply academic skills

• What are the new responsibilities for both teachers and students working with field-based learning programs?
• How can the career and academic skills that students learn during experiential learning programs be made explicit to them?
• How can connections be made between field-based learning experiences and academic classes?
• How can the quality of external learning experiences be monitored?
• What types of prerequisites are necessary for field-based experiences?
• What types of reflection do students need to undergo in order to gain the most from their experiential learning?

Those schools that have developed structures to highlight the career and academic skills learned in the field are not only keeping students interested in school but also enriching learning. Field-based learning, when coupled with things such as reflective writing, a structured seminar, or an academic assignment, has enormous learning potential. Furthermore, the types of field-based activities that these teachers identified as academically enriching and rigorous are compatible with, and most likely already are a part of, academic programs. However, the teachers and administrators with whom we spoke during post-questionnaire interviews pointed out that it is easy for a school to say that it does, in fact, use experiential learning ideas, but this simple response needs to be pushed. It is important to question how and why experiential learning is used as their reasoning affects the design of the program. Who participates in the program? How do you ensure that students are achieving the program goals through these experiences? What is its purpose? As one teacher summed up,

If the school-to-work transition program provides a direct link between academic and work-based learning, then I think the program has the potential to facilitate academic learning. Without some form of overt connection between the two, it is not clear to me if these types of programs would enhance academics at all.

Issues To Consider

In identifying the pitfalls to field-based learning, practitioners were advised to plan programs with an eye on maximizing students' learning experiences. In general, field-based learning experiences can reap great results--as has been shown decade after decade. However, they can also be a waste of time. Structure is the key. School-to-work transition does not mean simply placing students at a worksite to give them exposure and hoping that they walk away better prepared. It requires making explicit the skills learned, highlighting clear connections between what is learned in school and how it is used at the worksite, and illustrating how skills are transferable to a variety of areas. Once again, as so many schools have begun to include some sort of field-based learning program, the task now is to tap into those experiences more and more as a means of making them more academically rigorous and vocationally productive.

Some questions to consider in developing field-based learning programs, or assessing existing ones, are listed below as a beginning for conversation at your school:

• How can field-based learning programs be used as a holistic approach to reform as opposed to an adjunct program? How can the different field-based learning programs being used throughout your school be brought together to act as a leverage or catalyst for whole-school change?
• How are academic rigor and standards upheld in field-based learning while providing students with appealing experiences?
• How do academic teachers incorporate career development into their classrooms? Who at your school views career development as his or her responsibility? Should this change? If so, how will you make those changes? How will academic teachers develop the knowledge base to address career development? Do students need to learn a whole new set of skills and knowledge or are there other possibilities? How can teachers be better prepared to use field-based learning programs as integral parts of their curriculum while only having limited time to fulfill their existing responsibilities?
• How do you and your staff ensure quality field-based learning experiences? How do you ensure that when students are at a worksite, they are actually learning, and that they are connecting that learning to the learning they do in school and the types of things they will do in the future?
• What new roles do staff at your school have to take on to make a field-based learning program work?
• What types of components will you develop to ensure that students are reflecting on their experiences?
• Will you provide preparation for students before they begin a field-based learning experience? If so, what will this preparation look like and entail for teachers and students? Who will provide this preparation and when?
• How will you structure your schedule so that students do not miss too much of certain classes in order to attend their field-based learning experience?
• How will field-based learning experiences be tied, explicitly, to students' futures? Will field-based learning experiences serve as opportunities for career exploration? If so, how will you ensure that students are exposed to a variety of careers?
• Should specific and general skills be emphasized equally in field-based learning and career classes? What is the appropriate balance?
• If students participate in field-based learning experiences only within the school setting, how will you incorporate an element of reality--outside standards? Will you have audiences? If so, who will make up these audiences?

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