Improving Student Learning During Travel Time on Field Trips Using an Innovative, Portable Audio/video System
Elkins, Joe TABSTRACT
The authors developed a portable audio/video system using consumer electronics to make use of travel time during field trips. This system gives field instructors the ability to deliver PowerPoint presentations, instructional videos/DVDs, and CD-ROMs to students while in-route to field stops. This information technology makes use of the time in-route as instructional time, increases the time students participating in field excursions have in the field to make observations, and expands the use of information technology from being primarily a campus-based pedagogical aid to a field-oriented pedagogical tool that is used to focus the students on the academic objectives for upcoming field stops. Student interviews indicate that: a.) the use of this technology was a positive experience, b.) students perceived that the DVD and PowerPoint media helped focus their attention on upcoming field stops, and c.) the use of the devices increased the total time they had outside the vehicle for study. Instructors using the technology to show interdisciplinary media observed enhanced student assimilation of topics relevant to various courses of study on an extended interdisciplinary, field-based educational program.
INTRODUCTION
Time spent in vehicles traveling to field stops is unavoidable on field trips. Depending on the distance from the departure point to the field stop and the duration of the excursion, travel time during field trips can range from hours on a one-day excursion to days on expeditions such as geology field camps that last for weeks. Historically, the time spent transporting students from a departure point to the academic setting, whether to campus or a field stop, has rarely been used for formalized instruction (Prairie Ecology Bus, 2004, Saks, 1991, Vaughan, 1972). The most common application of electronics for instructional purposes during travel time on geology field trips is the use of hand-held radios between vehicles of multi-vehicle caravans (e.g. "The outcrop we are going to pass up here on the right shows you an example of..."). Because in-route instruction is typically sporadic, students frequently engage in activities that are irrelevant to the expedition's academic purpose (Science Education Resource Center, 2002). Travel time has been viewed as wasted time and as one of the key impediments to the justification of extensive field trips (Frankel et al, 2003).
The authors developed four introductory-level field-based courses at Bowling Green State University that require students and staff members to spend a significant amount of time traveling to field stops: Geology 250- Field-based Physical Geology (5hrs), Geology 251- Field-based Historical Geology (5hrs), American Culture Studies 252- Indigenous Cultures of North America (3hrs), and Environmental Studies 253-Environments in Context (3hrs) (Elkins and Lyle-Elkins, 2004). The courses are taught concurrently in an interdisciplinary format as part of a nine-week, 14,500 mile expeditionary field trip to 29 national parks and public lands across the United States during fall semester. The program is called "Geojourney" (http://www.geojourney.org) and the itinerary for this program is designed to use national parks, public lands, museums, visitor centers, and industrial sites as the basis for teaching introductory-level geoscience concepts. The expedition travels by van, moving every few days to new campsites across the US near national parklands including: Badlands, Yellowstone, Glacier, Mt. St. Helens, Yosemite, Grand Canyon, and Great Smoky Mountains. The itinerary is designed to give students first-hand experience in a wide range of geographic environments and an opportunity to study each subject in a holistic framework. The Geojourney expedition was inspired by our experience with and the long-term success of the University of Georgia Interdisciplinary Field Program (LyIe et al., 2002).
While Geojourney's innovative itinerary affords students field experience in locations across the United States, the itinerary also requires considerable time in vehicles traveling to these field localities. Indeed, the total time Geojourney students spend in vehicles exceeds the total number of contact hours a full-time student on campus spends in classrooms during a sixteen week semester. (Total time in vehicles on Geojourney = 14,500mi/60mph = 241.66 hrs; total time in class during a 16-week semester = 15hrs/week x 16 weeks = 240 hrs.). With so much time spent in vehicles during the nine-week field course, the authors wanted to devise a means of turning 'wasted' travel time into instructional opportunities.
Because many courses on campuses utilize presentation software and educational videos as instructional aids in large lecture sections, we wanted to develop an instructional medium for use during travel time that would allow time in-route to serve a similar pedagogical function as attending a lecture on campus. Moreover, since the primary purpose of designing a field-based course was to give students experience with geology in its natural context, we wanted to use the time in-route to deliver preparatory material pertinent to the upcoming field stop. Preparatory lectures and videos delivered during travel time allow us to maximize the total time students have in the field to take advantage of inquiry-based learning. Additionally, we wanted to use videos to help emphasize interdisciplinary ideas in our particular field courses and to serve as nuclei for discussions in-route and in camp. Toward this effort, we developed and used a portable digital audio-visual system (Figures 1 and 2) for the first time during the fall 2004 Geojourney field season (Elkins and Lyle-Elkins, 2004). We assembled the device in one of the vehicles in our caravan and rotated the student passengers into that van during drive times so that all eighteen students on the program had heard the same PowerPoint-assisted presentation or had watched the same video before arriving at the day's field stop.
INSTRUMENT DESIGN
The system (Figures 3 and 4) uses a 15" flat LCD computer screen mounted to a vertically placed tension bar set in front of the first row of a passenger van. The VGA cable from the LCD screen is connected to a laptop computer which is operated by the instructor in the front passenger seat. Using the laptop, introductory lectures and presentations can be shown on the mounted LCD screen using PowerPoint software. The laptop also has a DVD drive which allows instructional videos to be presented on the LCD screen while in-route. Audio from the laptop is played over the vehicle's existing speaker system using an FM transmitter plugged into the headphone jack of the laptop and broadcast over a locally unused FM radio station. When giving PowerPoint presentations, the instructor wears a headset-mounted microphone which is plugged to the input port of a mini amplifier/speaker. The FM transmitter is plugged into the output port of the mini amplifier / speaker and allows the instructor's voice to be transmitted over the vehicle's factory-installed sound system. Power for the LCD screen and laptop computer are provided by the use of an AC power inverter that is plugged into the vehicle's cigarette lighter. The FM transmitter and the mini amplifier/speaker are DC powered and are plugged into a DC splitter which is plugged into the vehicle's other cigarette lighter/DC power outlet. For vehicles containing one cigarette lighter, a three port DC splitter can be used to power all the devices. To minimize the number of cords and cables, we preferred to run the headset, mini amplifier/speaker, and the FM transmitter on batteries.
The device was designed to be portable instead of permanently installed in the vehicle for several reasons: 1.) many field programs use either rental vehicles or vehicles from an institutional motor pool that are returned at the end of the expedition, and 2.) during the course of an expedition lasting several months, issues arise that require one of the vehicles to diverge from the normally scheduled itinerary (e.g. trips to medical facilities, vehicle mechanical malfunctions). The portability of the system allows for the greatest flexibility in an extended field setting and in situations where rental vehicles are required.
INSTRUCTIONAL USE OF THE PORTABLE AUDIO/VIDEO SYSTEM WHILE IN-ROUTE TO FIELD STOPS
The itinerary of the GeoJourney field trip requires travel days involving many hours in vans traveling from one geomorphic province to another as well as traveling between small areas. Examples of such drives included traveling from The Glacier National Park to Mt. Helens National Volcanic Monument, from Crater Lake National Park to Point Reyes National Seashore, and from petroleum fields near Wichita Falls, Texas to the Old River Control Structure on the Mississippi River near Vicksburg, Mississippi. To make use of the time spent in the vehicles in a academically productive way rather than delivering a lecture either in camp at night after an 11 hour travel day, we gave PowerPoint lectures and showed instructional videos pertaining to our intended destination in the vehicles using the portable audio/video system while in-route. For example, while traveling to Mt. St. Helens, we gave a 20-minute PowerPoint presentation on volcanoes and volcanic hazards that had been used in our on-campus introductory-level geology classes, followed by a viewing of the documentary "The Fire Below Us: Remembering Mt. St. Helens" by Michael Lienau. While traveling from Crater Lake National Park to Point Reyes National Seashore we viewed an episode of Stephen Ives's documentary "The West" entitled "The Speck of the Future". The episode pertained to the 1849 California Gold Rush and the subsequent settlement of California by people of European descent and that settlement's effect on Native Americans in California.
Extended examples of how the device was used in the field as Geojourney traveled through the American Southwest follow. This example illustrates how the technology a.) prepared students for upcoming stops and focused their attention on our academic objectives for a specific region, b.) made use of the time spent traveling in vans to accomplish our academic agenda so that introductory presentations and materials would not have to be given in camp, at night, after long drive days when both students/passengers and instructors/drivers were mentally and physically fatigued, c.) allowed the use of instructional materials such as videos, animations, and PowerPoint presentations having high quality production values and succinct visualizations of complex geologic processes to complement field-intensive experiences, and d.) allowed the use of interdisciplinary videos to enhance students' understanding of "big picture" ideas relevant to all three subject areas taught on Geojourney.
THE AMERICAN SOUTHWEST ITINERARY AND MEDIA
In the Basin and Range and Colorado Plateau geomorphic provinces, fluvial processes are one of the dominant geomorphic agents shaping the view seen within the landscape. On the drive from our campsite in Mammoth Lakes, California to our campsite near Las Vegas, Nevada we used the portable audio/video device to introduce the topic of fluvial processes. A PowerPoint presentation outlined the differences between fluvial processes and resulting landforms in arid climates (such as those likely encountered over the then upcoming two weeks as the field trip traveled through the Colorado Plateau) vs. those in humid climates (landforms the students were more familiar with, having grown up in the Eastern U.S.). The PowerPoint presentation was originally developed for use in our on-campus introductory geology courses and followed the students' text book very closely.
While in-route from our campsite near Las Vegas, Nevada, to our campsite near the Grand Canyon, we used the portable audio/video device to show students a computer animation simulating the movement of the North American Continent across the Earth from the Cambrian to the Permian Eras. We also showed photographs of modern depositional environments thought to represent ancient depositional environments of the stratigraphie units found at Grand Canyon National Park. Upon arrival at Grand Canyon, the students then conducted a geological mapping project of the Bright Angel Trail. Their reports recounted the geological evolution of the Grand Canyon through their observations of physical evidence found in outcrops and hand samples as well as their understanding of the movement of the continents as seen in the animation and photographs shown in the van the previous day.
On the drive from Grand Canyon National Park to Zion National Park we planned a stop at the Glen Canyon Dam. Prior to the stop, we viewed an episode of the PBS documentary "Cadillac Desert: Water and the Transformation of Nature" titled "An American Nile", regarding the history of the development of dams and waterworks along the Colorado River. The video also complemented the previous few days of study during which we traveled through Las Vegas, Nevada. In the Las Vegas area we saw first-hand the scale of urban growth within that community made possible by the engineering projects along the Colorado River. The students had also been assigned exercises at the Museum of Northern Arizona in Flagstaff relating to Pueblo peoples' population density in the Southwest prior to European contact and the scale of Native American water projects. The day before our travel to Glen Canyon Dam on the way to Zion National Park, the students completed the geological mapping project of the Bright Angel Trail at Grand Canyon National park and had discussed the role of the Colorado River on the geomorphic development of the Grand Canyon within their field reports associated with the mapping project. Because water, and in particular the Colorado River, had been the focus of Geojourney's academic agenda for several days, the Cadillac Desert documentary was shown to link several days of the students' experiences as well as to help link the four courses together, resulting in a interdisciplinary analysis of the most important watersheds in the western United States.
STUDENT EVALUATIONS
A non-instructional, technology-savvy support staff member, whose duties involved the set-up and break-down of the portable audio/video device as well as documentation of the excursion with photography and videography, collected video-taped interviews of all 18 students on Geojourney during the fall semester of 2004 to provide a summative, qualitative assessment of the effectiveness of instructional media during travel time to field stops. In addition to questions regarding the students' assessment of the use of the portable audio/visual system (Box 1), students were also asked questions relating to other aspects of their nine-week field Geojourney experience regarding: a.) their attitudes toward geology as a subject, b.) questions regarding specific geologic concepts and content, and c.) questions regarding overall course evaluations pertaining to Geojourney as an unique learning experience. The responses to those questions are the focus of other research beyond the scope of this paper and those questions not pertaining to the use of the portable audio video device are not included in this work.
The interviews look place in camp, at night during the final days of the excursions before final grades had been assigned in the courses. Each student was interviewed separately from his or her peers. Students were seated on one side of an outdoor picnic table at the edge of the camp site, facing the interviewer who sat across the picnic table, while the interview space was illuminated using a portable propane lantern. Questions were read by the authors from a script approved by Bowling Green State University Human Subjects Review Board and followed a rigid protocol, where once the student completed answering a question, the next question from the script would be asked. Overall, each interview lasted from 20 minutes to 1.5 hours. A tripod-mounted MiniDV video camera was set up next to the interviewer, facing the student. Video-taped students' responses pertaining to the use of the portable audio/video device were edited together according to question and can be viewed at http://www.geojourney. org/movieclips/InstrMedia.mov. The interviews were transcribed and the dialogues from key questions concerning the use of instructional media appear in Box 1.
DISCUSSION
Students participating in Geojourney indicated that the use of instructional media had variable effects on the amount of time they spent studying outside of the time in the field and in the vans (Box 1). Students also indicated that they thought the use of instructional media while in-route to field stops brought coherence to Geojourney's overall academic agenda, and they generally enjoyed the use of the device for delivering introductory presentations (Box 1). Although there were issues associated with the occasional difficulty of taking notes while traveling in a vehicle, overall student responses suggest that use of the device should be continued (Box 1, and Elkins and Lyle-Elkins, 2004 b).
From the instructors' standpoint, our experience with the portable audio/visual system was overall a positive one. Although the device was originally conceived of to avoid having to deliver introductory presentations at night, after long drive days when the instructors/drivers were mentally and physically fatigued, the device turned out to be an innovative in for preparing students for upcoming stops and a valuable tool for focusing student attention on the overall academic objectives for the excursion while traveling in a vehicle. This outcome was especially beneficial since students often occupy time traveling in vehicles with activities irrelevant to the objective of the field trip.
On days when we did not use the device, we generally found that students slept in the vans and were slow in exiting the vehicles as a result of having been asleep moments before. For example, on long drives when our departure time from our campsite was around dawn, students would fall asleep in the vans shortly after getting on the road and awake three hours later in new terrain without having seen the topographic, climatic, and ecological gradational transitions between the two locations. The result of that simulated "teleportation by van" was that when the device was not used, students also seemed slightly confused on how field stops related spatially to previous field stops. They typically were slower to answer questions regarding how the local topography and geology were related. In these scenarios, they were also often unable grasp how the land use for a region related to topography and climate, which was likely a result of not seeing the land use change gradually from one location to the next. Several times students had difficulty distinguishing rock types, such as sedimentary units and volcanic material as a result of not understanding the relationship of nearby volcanoes to the field location. When lectures or videos were shown in camp at night, students had difficulty staying awake, showed lower enthusiasm, and were generally distracted by pests, climate, and desires to use campground amenities such as laundry, phones and showers. They were more vocal about slightly declining morale after long travel days (when lecture times were announced for the evening, groans could be heard).
In general, on days when the device was used, students were alert, taking time to observe topographic, climatic, ecological and land use changes. Often, they would point out upcoming changes within the geology, topography and land use to one another following the use of the device. They also asked questions of the instructors more frequently while traveling down the road and asked more informed questions about the physical changes in the landscape. Discussions in the vehicles immediately following the videos and lectures provided the students with opportunities to synthesize the main points of the videos. At field stops, they exited the vehicles more quickly (providing more time in the field for them to pick up rocks and observe variations within outcrops). They also related information from the presentations and videos to field sites they visited and were able to better formulate questions while in the field.
Overall, the device seemed to facilitate a higher incidence of instructor/student interaction while traveling through terrains during daylight hours. Through the use of videos and PowerPoint presentations, students seemed more interested in field stops, were alert and prepared when asked questions at field stops, and were quicker getting in and out the vans at field stops.
Student answers on exam questions relating to material covered that also had an instructional component through the portable audio/visual system were more articulate and robust regarding the use of examples and student-generated illustration to explain geologic concepts. Presumably, this outcome was as a result of seeing high production value videos, graphics and animations of geologic processes. Casual conversations regarding the academic agenda in camp (in non-academic settings between instructors and students such as the dinner line, around the bathhouses, and entering and existing museums) also seemed to more frequently pertain to the subject of study presented in the vans during days when the device was used more often.
As instructors who had experience setting up the device and using it as the platform to deliver introductory course materials, we offer the following comments to field instructors who would potentially develop their own similar systems:
A. Because the system was developed with existing off-the-shelf consumer electronic components that were not individually designed for this application, the operator has to contend with several connecting cables, power cords, and the devices themselves which rest either in the operator's lap or in a pile on the floorboard between the front seats.
B. Set-up and disassembly times need to be planned. Connecting the various devices to one-another as well as to their power sources, and checking the system to insure that the desired images are appearing on the LCD screen takes approximately ten minutes and should be a considered when planning the day's itinerary.
C. Many universities and schools are reducing the maximum number of passengers in institution-owned 15-passenger vans to 10 occupants due to the liability associated with these vehicles. Class size for many field camps ranges from 18-26 students (Syracuse University Library, 2004). Due to institutional limitations on vehicle occupancy, class size often requires the use of multiple vehicles. Because only one of our vans had the system assembled in it, students had to move from one vehicle to another in order for all the students to hear the presentations or watch the videos.
The need to rotate the students into the vehicle with the audio/video system poses the following considerations:
A. It causes the caravan to stop more often, which reduces field time for that day's itinerary.
B. There must be at least the same number of hours between the departure point and the destination as there are vehicles in the caravan in order for each van-load of students to receive the introduction to the field stop (each lesson or video is on average one hour long). This limits the use of the system to days on the itinerary when there are long drives.
C. The instructors traveling in the vehicle where the system is set up have to deliver the lecture up to three times in a row or have to listen to the same video for three hours.
CONCLUSIONS
The use of the electronic instructional media system described above has the potential to revolutionize how field trips are planned by allowing unavoidable travel time bewteen field stops to be used for formalized instruction. This pedagogical tool could be applied in virtually any setting where field trips are offered and travel time is required to get to field stops. Making use of time in-route as instructional time could dispel the notion that field trips have a significant component of 'wasted' travel time getting to and from the field setting and could encourage instructors to incorporate field excursions into their courses more often, regardless of the destination. At least 67 colleges and universities in the United States offer geology field camps that have some travel component required to arrive at the field station or field setting (Syracuse University Library, 2004). An untold number of shorter day-long to weekend-long field excursions are offered as part of campus-based geology classes across the United States every academic semester.
In addition to geology courses, this technology could be applied to all college-level courses that have field trips as part of their coursework (e.g. ecology, field biology, environmental studies, forestry, crop and soil sciences). This technology's portability would make travel time instruction possible even on standard school buses in-route to field trip localities.
Additionally, the use of this system expands the use of information technology from being primarily a campus-based pedagogical aid to a pedagogical tool that can help prepare students for the academic objectives of the upcoming field stop, ultimately allowing a more efficient use of time in the field where best practices are employed. In conclusion, our goal that "If it can be done in a lecture hall, it can be done in-route," can be realized with portable audio-visual systems like the one described here. The device presents a great opportunity for going beyond lecture hall instruction by creating a mechanism for showing videos and PowerPoint presentations that are specific to sites being visited, and, in the case of Geojourney, videos that enhance the interdisciplinary nature of the instruction in the field.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We wish to thank Ms. Tracey Budden, who put so much time into the development of this system, for her assistance using the system during the fall of 2004. We also would like to thank the staff and students who participated in Geojourney during fall of 2004 for making the experience so rewarding.
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Joe T. Elkins Department of Geology, 190 Overman Hall, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH, 43403, jelkins@bgsu.edu
Nichole M. L. Elkins Department of Geology, 190 Overman Hall, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH, 43403, nikki@geojourney.org
Copyright National Association of Geoscience Teachers Mar 2006
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