Running head: MYSTERY AND FIELD TRIPS AS INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES 1

Mystery and Field Trips as Instructional Strategies

Shelly Treleaven

EEA 532: Instructional Leadership: Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment

M. Ed. in Leadership

City University of Seattle in Canada

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We are all learners and the ways in which we learn can be unique. There are a number of

strategies that can be employed to significantly impact the engagement and concept attainment

for learners and two that are strongly encouraged are mystery and field trips. As humans we are

hardwired to solve problems (Phillips, 2006) and because of this, the idea of mystery employed

as a learning strategy is understandable and given that we learn better when we experience

something in context, illustrates the value of field trips.

We start at a very young age asking the question ‘why?’ and this desire to understand is

foundational to our development. When we learn, the process of asking and answering questions

rather than just ‘sit and get’ telling of fact or information has a deeper and lasting impact on the

attainment of knowledge. Research proves that “engaging students in the process of generating

and testing hypotheses is a surefire way to increase academic achievement across all grade levels

and content areas” (Silver, Strong, and Perini). Field trips are also engaging learning activities

that provide “experiences that can be recalled and useful long after a visit” ​(Salmi, 2003; Falk &

Dierking, 1997; Wolins, Jensen, & Ulzheimer, 1992).​ The benefits of these two strategies are

numerous. Not only are they a ton of fun, extremely engaging, and student behaviour is less of a

concern but to top it all off, students will have more deeply connected to the outcomes.

The challenges of these two strategies is the significant preparation that is required on the

part of the instructor. One can use mystery as either a singular lesson or an entire unit. As

described in the book The Strategic Teacher, developing a mystery lesson or unit involves five

main steps. These are:

1. Identify a question to be answered, riddle to be solved, situations to be explained,

or secret to be discovered.
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2. Gather and develop the clues

3. Decide how students will work to solve the mystery

4. Determine how you will present the clues

5. Select a format for the presentation of students’ conclusions (pgs. 111-112)

In contrast, field trips are primarily used as either an initiating or culminating events for a unit.

The list of preparations depends on the site being visited, the school and/or the division’s

requirements. Making certain that the trip is curricularly connected, purposeful, and safe are

essential elements, but an additional disadvantage of field trips is their expense. Depending on

the trip, the cost of admission, programming, along with bussing can render many excellent

learning opportunities not feasible. Another concern would be that without a genuine focus on

the objective, employing an instructional strategy such as these two will keep students busy and

engaged but learning might be lacking or not evident at all.

The impact of these two strategies on student engagement can be profound. Using

mystery as a part of a project-based learning activity or unit creates a sense of authenticity that

enhances the connection to real-world problems or challenges (Silver, Strong and Perini). Most

students feel a real sense of purpose when solving a mystery and as a result they are motivated to

persist. For many students a field trip offers them an opportunity to see or experience something

that they would otherwise not have available to them. According to Greene, Kisida, and Bowen

(2014) a student’s recollection of information encountered during a field trip was greater than

70% even weeks later. Their ability to state information and describe displays they saw with

great detail was also significant. These researchers indicated that even without direct instruction

or during self-guided tours students took in significantly more content than would have likely
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been planned for by their instructors. Taking students off-site is a lot of work and can create

anxiety, but these are often the experiences that one’s students remember for a lifetime. The

effort of planning and anxiety are all worth it as the significance for the student is evident.

These two strategies in the past may have been seen as tricks or rewards to get students

engaged in the content, but upon deeper analysis it is evident that with focused planning,

strategic attention to outcomes, and careful selection of sites, mystery and field trips are both

powerful learning devices. Mystery lessons are not only fun for the student but they are also fun

for the instructor to create as well. Knowing that the students are going to be excited and

actively engaged in the curriculum makes much of the planning engaging for the lesson designer.

While field trips are not something one can implement on a daily or even weekly basis, they do

provide an opportunity for engaged, deep learning that engenders further consideration.
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References

Falk, J. & Direking, L. (1997). School field trips: Assessing their long-term impact. Curator, 40,

211-218. Retrieved from

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.2151-6952.1997.tb01304.x/abstract

Greene, J. P., Kisida, B., & Bowen, D. H. (2014). The benefits of culturally enriching field trips.

The Education Digest,​ 79(8), 4.

Phillips. H. (2006). Faq: The human brain. New Scientist. Retrieved from

https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn9970-faq-the-human-brain/

Salmi, H. (2003). Science centres as learning laboratories: experiences of heureka, the finnish

science. ​International journal of technology management,​ 25, 460–476. Retrieved from

http://www.heureka.fi/portal/englanti/about_heureka/research/international_journal_of_te

chnology_management/

Silver, H. F., Strong, R. W., & Perini, M. J. (2007). ​The strategic teacher: Selecting the right

research-based strategy for every lesson​. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision

and Curriculum Development.

Wolins, I. S., Jensen, N., & Ulzheimer, R. (1992). Children’s memories of museum field trips: A

qualitative study. Journal of Museum Education, 17(2), 17–27. Retrieved from

http://www.jstor.org/pss/40478925