Abstract
A field trip is typically a group excursion to a place away from their normal environment for performing firsthand research on a topic. Field trips have been widely used in teaching and learning, and have been considered as the effective way to promote students’ active and inquirybased learning. As Prather (1989) noted, “compared to other traditional teaching techniques, field trips may provide an especially rich stimulus setting for content learning and may excel in generating a natural inclination to learning”. Similarly, Woerner (1999) indicated that field trips offered excitement, adventure, and visual, auditory, kinesthetic, olfactory, and gustatory experiences for students to learn about the real world and how it worked.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Technology Integration: It refers to describe effective uses of technology by teachers and students for teaching and learning in content areas.
Concept Mapping: It refers to a type of structured conceptualization by representing knowledge in graphs that was developed by Joseph D. Novak in the 1960s. Knowledge graphs are networks of concepts. Networks consist of nodes (points/vertices) and links (arcs/edges). Nodes represent concepts and links represent the relations between concepts.
Inquiry-Based Learning: It refers to a student-centered, active learning approach focusing on questioning, critical thinking, and problem solving.
Active Learning: It refers to a process whereby learners are actively engaged in the learning process, rather than “passively” absorbing lecture. During the active learning process, learners must read, write, discuss, and engage in solving problems, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.
Virtual Reality: It refers to a simulated multidimensional environment by computer technology that feeds the user’s senses with stimuli that model real-world conditions and thereby, give the impression of moving within a virtual world.
Information Literacy: It refers to a constellation of skills revolving around information research and use. According to the Final Report of the American Library Association Presidential Committee on Information Literacy (1989 AU3: The in-text citation "Information Literacy (1989" is not in the reference list. Please correct the citation, add the reference to the list, or delete the citation. ), the information literate person is, “able to recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use it effectively.” (Retrieved April 3, 2007, from http://www.ala.org/ala/acrl/acrlpubs/whitepapers/presidential.htm )