Are field trips the ultimate test of student agency?

Field trip is a great opportunity for students to develop their self-management skills; personnal, interpersonal, emotional and social skills.

1- Self-care and independence

Field trips provide students with opportunities to develop independence to take care of themselves. This includes cleaning shared spaces, maintaining personal hygiene, making decisions about appropriate food to eat, making agreements with others to self-monitoring. Through their own inquiries, students also learn a lot from the people who work in that field about how to coach people to learn about different aspects.

2- Self-motivation

For many of our students, the trip might be a very intense learning journey especially for young students, it can their first time have been on a trip without their families after two years of quarantine. .

3- Self-reflection

Guided reflection related to specific attributes of the IB learner profile is also a way to foster greater agency. Giving students the opportunity to reflect each day on ways that they have shown different attributes raises awareness of the importance of being confident, respectful, and committed.

4- Self-directed learning

The field trip is an ideal moment for students to try out their questioning skills and find out about their interests. They are encouraged to ask the perspectives of the people that they meet. All this leads to self-directed learning in their areas of interest.

5- Small actions

We have found another way to focus on the agency is to that students are making a great effort to be kind to each other and that this kindness extends beyond our community to others who they meet.

Habiba Jaballah

habiba.jaballah@gmail.com