What happens in classrooms after earth science fieldwork? Supporting student learning processes during follow-up activities

Abstract

Follow-up activities after fieldwork are recommended, yet little research has been conducted in this area. This study investigates six cases of follow-up work carried out by three teachers and their students in three upper secondary schools in Norway. The data comprises video observations of teachers and students, instructional artifacts, students’ end products (e.g., oral presentations), and post-interviews with teachers. The data are analyzed according to: (1) recommendations for follow-up work and (2) the level of student performance (i.e., talk, actions, etc.) while undertaking the activities. The findings revealed that the teachers implemented follow-up work mostly in line with recommendations. However, the findings regarding students’ learning processes revealed that low-level performance prevailed during follow-up activities. The two most promising cases are described in detail to enable a discussion of ways of improving recommendations of how student learning processes can be supported during follow-up work. Hence, we propose that students should be given learning tasks that require them to suggest a solution to a dilemma and use field data to justify their solution. The dilemma could profitably involve replication of an actual situation. In addition, follow-up work should be divided into two sub-phases: interpretation of field data and creation of an end product.

Keywords:

• fieldwork
• follow-up work
• earth science
• student learning process
• learning task

Acknowledgements

We thank the teachers and students for allowing us to collect video data from their activities before, during and after fieldwork. We also appreciate comments from IRGEE referees on this article.