Virtual Field Trips are Engaging, Flexible, & Economical
People remember field trips.
When asked to think back to their school days, when the names of teachers, courses and assignments are long forgotten, field trips are fondly remembered. What makes a field trip so memorable? A typical, traditional field trip is usually a vacation away from the school site, into a new context, exposing students to novel material or to different ideas. In the best instances, it is also a hands-on experience, allowing students to make tangible the concepts recently learned.
Inquiry-based learning intersects naturally and organically with the concept of field trips. What better way to follow through on a learning plan than by engaging with the subject matter in real time, in real life, and with an expert? But traditional field trips can be cumbersome to plan and might be perceived as more trouble than they're worth, resulting in lost opportunities for inquiry-based learning.
Virtual Field Trips are the perfect antidote to this bleak scenario. As engaging, flexible, and economical alternatives to the traditional field trip, Virtual Fields Trips are poised to change how teachers help their students to interact with the world outside the classroom. As our abilities to connect both locally and globally to people and to places improves, so will the learning opportunities educators can provide for students.
When asked to think back to their school days, when the names of teachers, courses and assignments are long forgotten, field trips are fondly remembered. What makes a field trip so memorable? A typical, traditional field trip is usually a vacation away from the school site, into a new context, exposing students to novel material or to different ideas. In the best instances, it is also a hands-on experience, allowing students to make tangible the concepts recently learned.
Inquiry-based learning intersects naturally and organically with the concept of field trips. What better way to follow through on a learning plan than by engaging with the subject matter in real time, in real life, and with an expert? But traditional field trips can be cumbersome to plan and might be perceived as more trouble than they're worth, resulting in lost opportunities for inquiry-based learning.
Virtual Field Trips are the perfect antidote to this bleak scenario. As engaging, flexible, and economical alternatives to the traditional field trip, Virtual Fields Trips are poised to change how teachers help their students to interact with the world outside the classroom. As our abilities to connect both locally and globally to people and to places improves, so will the learning opportunities educators can provide for students.
Inquiry learning and the 4EX2 Model
This tutorial is a miniature guided inquiry for educators interested in learning more about Virtual Field Trips and the 4Ex2 Instructional Framework for inquiry based learning (Marshall, Horton and Smart, 2009).
The tutorial is presented according to the 4Ex2 model. It is hoped you will be Engaged, that you will have the chance to Explore, that you'll confirm your understandings in Explain and that you can implement your learning in Extend. Each phase of inquiry learning will be described and set up for learning about VFT's. Guiding questions appropriate to each phase of inquiry learning will be presented. These can be used in any cycle of inquiry learning.
This inquiry-based instructional framework has been been identified as particularly conducive to working with Virtual Field Trips. A VFT can be used for different purposes at every stage of the inquiry process. A VFT can certainly 'Engage' and spark questions in learning, or could help students to 'Explore' a concept being studied. By checking their understandings with an expert, students can use virtual field trips to satisfy the 'Explain' component of inquiry learning. In finding a virtual field trip that is just at the edge of students' abilities or understandings, a teacher could use a virtual field trip to 'Extend' learning. Formative assessment, if frequently conducted and reviewed, will ensure that educators are using virtual field trip to promote student learning and understanding, while professional metacognitive reflection will ensure that teachers are aware of how learning process is proceeding.
Every step of the inquiry process is best supported with intentional and careful questioning. The guiding questions in each section highlight possible questioning strategies and encourage readers to interact with the content.
The tutorial is presented according to the 4Ex2 model. It is hoped you will be Engaged, that you will have the chance to Explore, that you'll confirm your understandings in Explain and that you can implement your learning in Extend. Each phase of inquiry learning will be described and set up for learning about VFT's. Guiding questions appropriate to each phase of inquiry learning will be presented. These can be used in any cycle of inquiry learning.
This inquiry-based instructional framework has been been identified as particularly conducive to working with Virtual Field Trips. A VFT can be used for different purposes at every stage of the inquiry process. A VFT can certainly 'Engage' and spark questions in learning, or could help students to 'Explore' a concept being studied. By checking their understandings with an expert, students can use virtual field trips to satisfy the 'Explain' component of inquiry learning. In finding a virtual field trip that is just at the edge of students' abilities or understandings, a teacher could use a virtual field trip to 'Extend' learning. Formative assessment, if frequently conducted and reviewed, will ensure that educators are using virtual field trip to promote student learning and understanding, while professional metacognitive reflection will ensure that teachers are aware of how learning process is proceeding.
Every step of the inquiry process is best supported with intentional and careful questioning. The guiding questions in each section highlight possible questioning strategies and encourage readers to interact with the content.
Time investment
This tutorial requires a small, initial time commitment, as you learn about Virtual Field Trips. However, the amount of time you might spend further exploring VFT's, connecting with other educators, or designing your own VFT's will be determined by you. Although we have built the tutorial to follow the stages of an inquiry-based unit, feel free to jump to whichever page answers the questions you most want answered.