Students often spend much of their time in classes talking about the content of their courses rather than applying that content. Moving students more quickly towards applying content in authentic ways can enhance and strengthen students’ understanding of concepts and ideas – something that can be difficult through abstract discourse.

If you would like your students to learn through application, field observations can be a very effective way to bring the real world into the classroom.  In his fully online course Introduction to Sociology, Netra Darai uses several “Participant Observations” in which students go out into their local communities to study a particular topic, and report and discuss their experiences with their classmates via a blog.  In a unit on social class, his students speak to staff members of organizations supporting the homeless. In a unit on gender and age, they interview an elderly person they know.

In her hybrid course, Cross Cultural Psychology, which meets face-to-face once per week, Katie Howe uses similar field observations. For example, in a unit on McDonaldization, her students visit popular chain stores, restaurants or local sporting events to examine how such establishments follow principles of McDonaldization (efficiency, calculability, predictability, and control).  Students then present a brief report on their observations in class.

If you would like assistance with crafting such assignments for your course, feel free to contact the instructional designers on the eLearning team or contact us at elis@lesley.edu.

Note: The image above is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.