Taking Classroom to the Field: An Integrated Approach for Teaching Soil Science Courses at the University of Guam
Location
LaSells Stewart Center
Event Website
http://uenr.forestry.oregonstate.edu/
Start Date
3-14-2008 12:09 PM
End Date
3-14-2008 12:18 PM
Description
Recent educational reports have suggested that the developments or key transferable skills, such as group working in the field, are a necessary outcome of higher education. A group working soil lab exercises were developed to evaluate the effectiveness of group field work by assigning formalized, individual group roles. Student responses and instructor observations suggested that there was considerable merit in this approach in terms of development of academic and transferable skills. It is suggested that this could serve as a precursor to a more formalized identification of group roles that would benefit both instructors and students alike in terms of successful field soil course delivery and meeting learning outcomes. Studies shown that field work is an essential element to learning soil science that provides a practical and stimulating supplement to classroom lectures. If facilitated appropriately, field work can provide an invaluable opportunity for students to develop many generic and subject-based skills, in addition to being a highly enjoyable experience. Field work can provide experiential learning in different environments, enabling students to compare and contrast knowledge acquired in the classroom with observations in the field. Field work also provides team building opportunities, produces a cohesive student body and develops instructor-students relationships. Despite the concerns regarding the quality of learning in the field, teaching/learning in the filed has been identified as essential for courses such as in Soil, Geography, and Environmental Sciences. The purpose of this article is to describe the use of group working in the field as a way of fostering active involvement of students in the natural resource classes that deal with natural settings. In this presentation some of the aspects of soil subject matter teaching and student learning in the field will be discussed and illustrated.
Taking Classroom to the Field: An Integrated Approach for Teaching Soil Science Courses at the University of Guam
LaSells Stewart Center
Recent educational reports have suggested that the developments or key transferable skills, such as group working in the field, are a necessary outcome of higher education. A group working soil lab exercises were developed to evaluate the effectiveness of group field work by assigning formalized, individual group roles. Student responses and instructor observations suggested that there was considerable merit in this approach in terms of development of academic and transferable skills. It is suggested that this could serve as a precursor to a more formalized identification of group roles that would benefit both instructors and students alike in terms of successful field soil course delivery and meeting learning outcomes. Studies shown that field work is an essential element to learning soil science that provides a practical and stimulating supplement to classroom lectures. If facilitated appropriately, field work can provide an invaluable opportunity for students to develop many generic and subject-based skills, in addition to being a highly enjoyable experience. Field work can provide experiential learning in different environments, enabling students to compare and contrast knowledge acquired in the classroom with observations in the field. Field work also provides team building opportunities, produces a cohesive student body and develops instructor-students relationships. Despite the concerns regarding the quality of learning in the field, teaching/learning in the filed has been identified as essential for courses such as in Soil, Geography, and Environmental Sciences. The purpose of this article is to describe the use of group working in the field as a way of fostering active involvement of students in the natural resource classes that deal with natural settings. In this presentation some of the aspects of soil subject matter teaching and student learning in the field will be discussed and illustrated.
https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/cuenr/7thBiennial/Posters/6
Comments
Poster presentation for 7th Biennial Conference on University Education in Natural Resources, March 13-15, 2008, Corvallis, Oregon. Featured in the ScholarsArchive@OSU in Oregon State University. Suggested Citation: Golabi, Mohammad. 2008. Taking classroom to the field: An integrated approach for teaching soil science courses at the University of Guam. UENR 7th Biennial Conference, ScholarsArchive at Oregon State University. http://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/xmlui/handle/1957/8332.