{"id":12264,"date":"2017-09-07T12:48:35","date_gmt":"2017-09-07T18:48:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/?p=12264"},"modified":"2018-08-23T11:13:31","modified_gmt":"2018-08-23T17:13:31","slug":"transforming-the-educational-experience-with-field-study","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/2017\/09\/transforming-the-educational-experience-with-field-study\/","title":{"rendered":"Transforming the Educational Experience with Field Study"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cBluegrass\u00a0makes community,\u201d says Keith\u00a0Reed, banjo, guitar, and bluegrass ensemble teacher with Colorado College\u2019s studio faculty in the Department of Music. \u201cYou add players, you add community.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a simple premise, but one that\u00a0Reed\u00a0and CC\u2019s\u00a0bluegrass ensemble\u00a0put to the test in this Summer Session course as they toured the Midwest and Southeastern United States.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted the students to get the real road experience, to feel what it\u2019s like to do the hard miles,\u201d\u00a0Reed\u00a0says with a huge smile.<\/p>\n

A lifelong bluegrass player and touring musician himself,\u00a0Reed is in a unique position to present the realities of a musical life on the road to his students. Having performed across the country and around the world, including shows at the Ryman Auditorium\u00a0in Nashville\u00a0and\u00a0Washington, D.C.\u2019s Kennedy Center,\u00a0Reed\u2019s\u00a0band of merry musicians have been hitting the road since early June.<\/p>\n

Field-study courses like Reed\u2019s are an integral part of the Colorado College experience, and creating and enhancing these opportunities is a key initiative of the \u201cBuilding on the Block\u201d strategic plan, which envisions every<\/i> student going on multiple field experiences throughout their time at CC.<\/p>\n

One of CC\u2019s most immersive Summer Session courses, Advanced Topics in Music:\u00a0On the Road and American Bluegrass, Reed\u2019s students spent their June playing festivals, campgrounds, and clubs across the American heartland and Southeast. They got up close and personal with professional musicians across a number of venues and stages across the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is such a great group of students,\u201d\u00a0Reed\u00a0says. \u201cThey want to do the work of touring musicians, to be exhausted, to perform, to form that community.\u201d It\u2019s one of the most\u00a0\u201cCC\u201d\u00a0experiences anyone could think of putting together\u00a0\u2014\u00a0nearly a month, on the road, in a 12-person van, touring across the country, living and breathing the experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are huge opportunities here, and not strictly musical ones. For students interested\u00a0in the industry, we\u2019re meeting with music executives and producers, working with sound engineers and roadies\u00a0\u2014\u00a0every person has worth on this trip, every single role is incredibly valuable,\u201d\u00a0Reed\u00a0explains.<\/p>\n

The students played, camped, and\u00a0Airbnb\u2019d\u00a0their way across Montana, South Dakota, and Indiana. From there, they headed east to Asheville, North Carolina, then to Nashville, Tennessee, and finally on to Owensboro, Kentucky,\u00a0for the Romp Festival.<\/p>\n

Garrett Blackwell \u201917<\/b> says the course showed him a musician\u2019s perspective of life on the road, but he also was able to experience different parts of the U.S.<\/p>\n

\u201cTraveling from the west to the east, we experienced a wealth of culture. Overall, this class has epitomized the experiential learning opportunity that makes CC such a magical place.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re experiencing almost everything that a bluegrass band would be on the road,\u201d says Yuexin Chen \u201918<\/b>. \u201cFrom camping and jamming, long drives, inevitable junk food at the rest stops, to the exciting parts such as recording and busking late night on the streets.\u201d<\/p>\n

Along the way, the class played with some extra-ordinary\u00a0musicians\u00a0\u2014\u00a0real legends of bluegrass and folk\u00a0\u2014 like Chris\u00a0Thile of Nickel Creek and the Nitty Gritty Dirty Band.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat this course does, this experience, is it allows us to get a real feel for the country as a whole. We go through so many places with unique music cultures, through Utah, Montana, the Badlands, down into the South \u2013 it\u2019s amazing,\u201d says Reed. \u201cMusic doesn\u2019t pay attention to age groups, what people do, what they believe. As long as you love it, you\u2019re accepted. That\u2019s what this class is all about.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another big believer in field trips is Associate Professor of Art History Rebecca Tucker, who has led many in her teaching career. As director of CC\u2019s Crown Faculty Center, she also helped lead and coordinate faculty development, and she is particularly interested in studying the pedagogy of field study at CC.<\/p>\n

\u201cField study makes different types of learning possible; it expands the arena of engagement for students, but also for the faculty. Faculty are very much in favor of field study, as a particular type of learning opportunity, as a means of getting students to go all in,\u201d says Tucker. \u201cWhat field study does is it takes the academic part of learning, which is incredibly intense here, and replaces it with something that is more holistic. So physically, emotionally, psycho-logically, you are all invested in what you are doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Faculty and students at CC can experience a block together in a profound way. Having this involvement together out in the field amplifies the focus, and the depth that students and faculty experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the classroom, a class commonly addresses questions from polarized positions. Asking questions in the field enhances nuance and breaks down expectations. The same thing happens to the faculty; the transformative experience is true for all of us,\u201d says Tucker.<\/p>\n

Tucker says many of the field experiences at CC would be impossible if not for the Block Plan.<\/p>\n

When students and faculty have only one class at a time, field trips can be a significant part of the educational experience. Going into the field gives students the opportunity to see the application of concepts taught in the classroom, and it can be transformative. The Block Plan opens up teaching and learning opportunities that are extremely difficult, if not impossible, under a normal semester schedule.<\/span><\/p>\n

Field study also provides opportunities for college students to develop the qualities that employers are asking for, according to Tucker. \u201cYou can\u2019t ever really tune your education to exactly what employers want. But they are saying they want what our students do on field trips \u2014 they want them to look carefully; they want them to be flexible; they want them to think on their feet; they want them to work in groups, adjust to different settings; they want them to engage. That\u2019s what a field trip does,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Recent graduate Joe Jannetty \u201914 <\/b>says he is unique among his friends who attended other colleges in the quality and number of field study opportunities he had at CC.<\/p>\n

\u201cTaking one course at a time affords you a lot of individual attention from your professor, and allows you to become fully immersed in the course. I was an economics major, but had the opportunity to go fossil hunting in New Mexico, study astronomy on the Baca campus, and research snow leopards in Nepal. None of my friends from home or from work had those opportunities because studying one subject at a time allows you to travel with your course without interfering with other courses,\u201d Jannetty says.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Georgia Griffis \u201918 sketches a rock formation at Red Rocks State Park in Morrison, Co. during her field study course Two Views of One World: Geology and Art in the San Luis Valley, co-taught by Henry Fricke and Michael Arnsteen. Photo by Jennifer Coombes<\/p><\/div>\n

Mellon Pedagogical Researcher in Residence Heather Fedesco agrees. \u201cThe Block Plan already does something unique by immersing students and faculty in a setting with sustained focus on content, but through the extensive use of field trips, students have additional opportunities to learn in settings where their learning is being applied. By creating novel, or unique, learning moments, students are awakened to a fuller and deeper understanding of the concepts being taught. What makes the Block Plan so special is the reinforcing effect these opportunities have on the learning that takes place here.\u201d<\/p>\n

The unique place of field study in a CC education has received more attention and support in recent years, with the formation in 2014 of the Office of Field Study and the hiring of Drew Cavin as director of field study. The office was created to support faculty to teach off-campus field study courses.\u00a0Cavin does this through logistical and administrative means, as well as by connecting faculty to pedagogical support and in-the-field resources.\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

In July 2015, Cavin organized CC\u2019s first Symposium on Field Study, which consisted of a small program of selected presenters and workshops designed to share best practices in field study courses. The investigation of field study pedagogy, its learning outcomes, and its contribution to students\u2019 holistic development is an emerging field, according to Cavin, and much of the study related to field experiences has been done within the co-curricular outdoor education context, not from the academic perspective.\u00a0The CC symposium was an effort to look more closely at the academic point of view of field study, a perspective for which liberal arts colleges have a special advantage, says Cavin.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIn contrast to large lectures and MOOCs [massive open online courses], the liberal arts\u2019 nimble, immersive, and small classes are uniquely positioned to make use of field study pedagogy to create high-impact experiential learning opportunities,\u201d says Cavin.<\/span><\/p>\n

Students in the course Russian Language, Literature, and Film experienced firsthand the high impact of field learning when they split class time between the CC campus, the Baca Campus, and the CC cabin. Learning a new language and culture became a richer experience for it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe field trips in the class were very important to helping us bond as a group and to helping us learn. The field trips allowed us to get to know our classmates better and be more comfortable interacting with each other, therefore, we didn\u2019t feel ashamed or restrained to practice the language with our classmates,\u201d says Eyner Roman \u201919<\/b>.<\/p>\n

Visiting Lecturer Natalia Khan, who co-taught the class with Associate Professor of Russian Alexei Pavlenko, says the field trips had multiple goals.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are so many distractions on campus. We want the students to get to know each other, and at Baca, there is nothing to do but hang out with your classmates, so it brings us together. Also, it lets them learn about themselves. At the CC Cabin, we stayed overnight and cooked a Russian dinner together. Everyone was participating, so we became even closer.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Participants in the Russian Language, Literature, and Film course find that learning a new language and culture is a richer \u2014 and tastier \u2014 experience when cooking together at the CC Cabin. Photo by Bryan Oller<\/p><\/div>\n

Field trips have traditionally been used to enhance science courses, but at CC, on the Block Plan, the extended time in a class without other distractions allows students to actually become field researchers, trapping and sampling fish populations and examining how they have changed over time. Brian Linkhart\u2019s Animal Ecology course did just that on the last free-flowing major tributary of the Colorado River system. The Yampa River in northwest Colorado is the focal point of the class.<\/p>\n

\u201cStudents are working with primary data sources \u2014 they\u2019re taking and gathering real data. That\u2019s of paramount importance. It builds realism into what they are doing \u2014 they see that it\u2019s relevant. There is a sense of \u2018here is real biology at work\u2019 and the importance of the techniques and methodologies that we employ, and trying to be as objective and careful with the data collection as we can,\u201d says Linkhart, associate professor of organismal biology and ecology.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Block Plan is central to our ability to do this. Being able to immerse in remote locations, those experiences take on a life of their own that can\u2019t be duplicated,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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