Engaging with the (Un)familiar: Field Teaching in a Multi-Campus Teaching Environment

Abstract

Field trips have long been central to geography, but have been subject to assessment of the role of the ‘field’ in teaching. At the same time, academics face barriers to running field trips. Distance education and enhanced educational access for non-metropolitan students represented such an obstacle at an Australian university. These obstacles were taken as an opportunity to draw on the regional nature of the students and staff to enhance teaching goals, run critically informed field trips by and manage academic workloads. We evaluate the field trips by conducting surveys and interviews with students and tutors, and as an example of innovation within constraints.

Keywords:

• Distance education
• regional
• access
• field teaching
• barriers
• Australia

Acknowledgements

This project was funded by grant from the UOW's Educational Strategic Development Fund and benefitted from the advice of Dr Christine Brown, UOW Centre for Educational Development, Innovation and Recognition. We are also grateful for the efforts and feedback of the ‘multi-campus’ tutors who have made these field trips possible and for ongoing support in the School of Earth and Environmental Science for undergraduate field trips.