Sarah - Learning Journey

I have always enjoyed field trips, mainly because I appreciate the hard work and effort that teachers put in while planning for learning journeys. For this particular learning journey, I enjoyed the trip to the URA the most because of the rich information that the place provide for us throughout the nation’s development. The activity conducted for us there was also free-and-easy, and it gives students a lot of freedom and flexibility to explore the place on their own. Especially if students are provided with various open-ended questions, students can gain a lot of new information from their exploration of the exhibition. I really enjoyed the investigation process of this activity, and also because of the open-ended questions, it motivated me to find clues to answer the questions. Although it was my second trip to the URA, I still had fun venturing the place and learn more things outside the textbook. The trip to Ann Siang Hill was also memorable and the activity was also relevant to complement the nostalgic ambiance of the area. Reading the poem by Arthur Yap out loud with my group at Ann Siang Hill gave me the sense of poignancy which is not easily attainable if the activity is conducted in the classroom. It made us open our eyes more to the surroundings and taking note of the changes that occur in a supposedly ‘preserved’ historical site. The following trips downtown till Singapore River was also impressionable and it was a good juxtaposition from the first trip to URA.

One of the important take-away that I attain from this learning journey is that Literature learning can take place outside of classroom. It will be more impactful especially if we are teaching local poetry/texts as students can appreciate the meaning and message behind the poems when they are physically present. Apart from that, planning also plays an important part before conducting learning journeys. We always have to bear in mind the feasibility of the activities that are going to be conducted. For example, this is not the first time that I have been warned by the security that the activity that is being conducted is disruptive. On top of that, we have to consider that we are actually planning learning journeys for students, and thus a variety of considerations have to be taken into account such as groupings and activity areas.

Field trips or learning journeys are often not mutually exclusive to only one discipline. We can always incorporate different subjects into a learning journey. For example, it can be part of an English Language trip where students are required to write short journal articles on the different places they visit. History is also plausible as students can always learn the culture and heritage of the place and run along the theme of change and continuity, and as for Geography, students may get a chance to investigate how and why certain places have evolved. Even Maths can be a possibility students can calculate the geometry of the different areas as well as the height of certain buildings and determine the area of elevation/depression. There are many interdisciplinary possibilities in conducting learning journeys and also, it is good to get extra help for pre-planning of learning journeys.

Before we begin embarking on the learning journey, it is essential to plan the objective for the trip. This is to monitor if the activities conducted meets the objectives for the learning journey at the end of the day. Pre-activity is also useful to give students a rough idea of what is happening for the trip. It is good if we can get them to prepare before the trip begins, such as doing a close reading on the specific poems. Post-activity is also important to determine if the students learn anything from the whole trip. Although it is good to incorporate the elements of fun and excitement in the learning journey, ultimately we want the students to achieve some knowledge from the trip; something which they may not gain in classroom learning.