The Classroom Teacher Role ~ During

Part I: PARTICIPATE

It is important that you participate in the Hidden Villa field trip with your students. Not because Hidden Villa necessary needs your assistance - all the staff and volunteers are highly capable guides - but to give you an insider's understanding of your students' experiences. It is very difficult to effectively integrate the field trip back into the classroom without having witnessed it yourself. Also, I find that the field trip allows me a wonderful opportunity to bond with my students. Freed from the responsibilities of classroom management, I am better able to connect individually to students as they make exciting discoveries in the garden, forest or farm.

Part II: INVESTIGATE

Another opportunity the Hidden Villa field trip offers teachers is the ability to closely observe the learning and social behavior of certain challenging students. Many students also behave differently at Hidden Villa. I have seen students who present a variety of teaching challenges in the classroom (attention difficulties, aggression, low self-esteem) flourish during the field trip at Hidden Villa.

Careful observation of these students helps me in three ways - 1) I discover what particularly interests these students and engages them in their learning. 2) I notice their interactions with other adults and students. This informs my teaching strategies and inspires me to try out new techniques. 3) Back in the classroom, I capitalize on the successes that I witnessed at Hidden Villa. Frequent reminders of their field trip experiences reinforce an unspoken expectation to students that they can use those skills I observed at Hidden Villa and be successful in the classroom.

If you choose to take advantage of this opportunity to be a learning investigator during the field trip, I recommend that you limit yourself to one or two students. Don't tell them that you are going to be studying their behavior during the day; just join their group and enjoy the chance to take a step back and observe. I like to take along my notebook and jot down ideas as I go. As all of my students are expected to take notes on the field trip, this behavior on my part doesn't seem at all unusual. I often find that I get more ideas when I can re-read all of my notes later in the peace of my own home.

Part III: DOCUMENT

Field trip photos can be used in an incredible variety of ways back in the classroom. Just a few examples include: inspiration for poems, illustrations for stories and engagement in grammar lessons. More than anything, I value my photos and videos as a wonderful way for my studentsto mentally return to Hidden Villa. This helps them reflect further on the lessons learned there. It's surprising how much more they remember when we have a visual or audio recording of parts of the field trip.

I want all of my students to be entirely focused on their actual participation in the field trip. Therefore I generally do not allow them to bring their own cameras. Instead, I make sure that my digital camera has plenty of memory space and several back-up batteries; and I click away as unobtrusively as possible. Because they are digital, I can take as many photos as necessary to get the few really good ones, without worrying about wasting money or bothering the guides. If you have parents coming on the trip, ask them to bring their digital cameras; or borrow one from your school if you can. Before sending parents off in their separate groups, though, make sure to give them some ideas about what types of pictures you want and how to take photos without intruding on the guide's teaching.