Using Field Trips and Site Visits Effectively
Friday, 29 April 2011 08:09By Dr. Fred Mayo, CHE, CHT
Site visits, or field trips, are great educational experiences that provide students with an industry perspective we cannot provide in our classrooms.
Last month, we discussed Organizing Review Sessions, which help students prepare for examinations. However, the activity that broadens their education the most is probably field trips to restaurants, foodservice facilities, dining rooms, food markets and other organizations in our industry. While the logistics of these visits can be a challenge, this "Mayo's Clinic" will focus on making these trips into valuable educational experiences, a task that requires some careful planning ahead of time and the attention to appropriate follow-up assignments.
Planning for a Field Trip
One of the hardest activities for many of us is identifying the correct site for a field trip and then integrating it, effectively, into the courses that we are teaching. Often, the sequencing of the field trip becomes a challenge because the availability of the site might not match the timing of when appropriate topics are covered in the course. Sometimes, I have used a field trip to start attention to a topic and at other times, been forced to use it to review material later in the course.