Innovating Field Trips Erasmus Project

Project Title

Innovating Field Trips

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for higher education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Pedagogy and didactics; International cooperation, international relations, development cooperation

Project Summary

Student field trips in Earth, Environmental and Life sciences are an important and valued component of the curricula in higher education institutions. The key value of field trips lies in providing students with a better sense of real-world environments and equipping them with an enhanced understanding of their subject whilst introducing them to processes, problems or techniques which cannot be studied or practiced in the lecture theatre or laboratory. The fieldtrip abroad is often a student’s first international experience and therefore the most memorable and valued experience in a degree programme. However, it is the case that the experience is not always optimised for student learning. For various reasons, innovative pedagogical approaches and techniques are seldom applied. Science field trips are practically always run with a group of students from a single academic discipline ignoring the demand from employers for interdisciplinary and internationality.

The key aim of this Strategic Partnership is to transform this established field-based teaching tool to improve student learning, and to better prepare students for professional practice and their lives as citizens beyond the campus. This Partnership has extensive experience (over 3 decades) of running fieldtrips abroad. Partners have researched and published on the benefits of encouraging integrative thinkers and learners, that is, helping students to make connections within and between disciplines and view challenges from multiple perspectives.

The project objectives will be achieved in two ways, through staff development and student interdisciplinary, multinational field courses.

1. International field courses can be costly in time and money, and so require a significant amount of preparation and expertise to ‘make the most of being there’. This Partnership will establish a multinational interdisciplinary staff development (training the trainers) course, at an established field studies centre, for higher education field trip leaders (logistics, curricular design and implementation) that will facilitate discourse and knowledge exchange and build networks. We will introduce field course leaders to innovative teaching approaches that have been shown to build students’ capacities to meet complex challenges through team work and through discourse with industry and NGO partners. This field-based course will enable good practice approaches to field-based learning to be shared amongst participating partners, focusing on knowledge exchange between different institutions, field science disciplines and career stages of course participants. The protocols, templates and other resources developed for course design, assessment, management and logistics will be open-access and available for use by networks throughout Europe and worldwide. The objective is to build a community of trained staff who are better prepared to optimise student learning, and thus employability prospects, and who are in a position to impact positively on the practice of peers in their own institutions and beyond.

2. The Partnership will set up and run fully accredited multinational, interdisciplinary field courses for students. Students will be introduced to unfamiliar environments, and work with peers from other science disciplines to meet real world, career-realistic, challenges. This will take the form of authentic research in interdisciplinary teams. Associated partners from industry and NGOs will provide relevant expertise and perspectives and enhance students’ preparedness for employment. During their field projects students will learn to apply modern technology to meet their challenges in real world scientific and commercial situations. Data collected during field work by students will be hosted in a specifically developed open data platform that will allow for future expansion, meta-analysis and collaboration with other students, and researchers.

We envisage that both activities will promote new interdisciplinary networking for course participants (students and staff) and their host institutions and result in the dissemination of evidence-based good practice in field-based pedagogy. We will use the ECTS system for accreditation, as well as micro-credentialing, and will seek other routes to accreditation from appropriate professional bodies (e.g. Royal Geographic Society). We will disseminate this information through summary reports following each field course, conference presentations, submissions to peer-reviewed pedagogic journal literature a website with downloadable resources, and via a culminating report at the conclusion of the project. This will ensure sustainability and impact beyond the Project partners.

Project Website

https://ifit.ucc.ie/

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 279464 Eur

Project Coordinator

UNIVERSITAET OSNABRUECK & Country: DE

Project Partners

• CERES INTERNATIONAL ALJEZUR LIMITED
• UNIVERSIDADE DE LISBOA
• UNIVERSITY COLLEGE CORK – NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF IRELAND, CORK