Where, when and what
The Mountain-to-Fjord Field Trip took place from the 22nd April til 25th April 2014.
We did two days of canoeing, one day of climbing and one-and- a-half days of mountain-biking.
As you can see in the map, we startet at Bygland (about 20km north of the red star furthest north) and canoed from there to Evje. We bivaqued on an island about two-thirds down the way.
On the third day we started from Evje with the bikes and cycled tot he climbing crack (about 15km). We bivaqued there as well and did some fishing in the evening.
From there we continued to cycle down all the way to Kristiansand (about 55km) on the fourth day.
Group dynamics, problems and learning outcomes
Our teacher told us in the beginning, that this trip was all about teaching and learning from oneanother. During the whole trip he was there, but interfered nearly never. He thus left our group without a leader to organize itself. Since we did not assign any special positions or field of expertise in which one could do some teacing, our group was really confused. The self-organization without any kind of leader did not work (until one student stepped up into the leading role).
In made up some guidelines after this experience:
- Anarchy doesn´t work in a group – either people know, that they are going to lead a part or one/two will take the leading role. To make the principle „everybody should lead“ work out, you have to make clear, who is in responsibility at which time.
- To make a group teach themselves efficiently, you should distibute the different learning fields to „experts“ so that they know, when it is their time to teach.
- Don´t ask a whole group „is there anybody who wants to change the groups“ (or any similar question – because nobody will speak up.
In an ideal group it might have worked out without a teacher and a leader, that everybody will gain as much learning as possible and have the leading experience, but no group is ideal. So these guidelines would – in my opinion – make the whole thing go smoother and give everybody a reacher learning experience.
For me it was more a holiday than an university excursion. I did not learn anything new in canoeing, climbing or mounatinbiking. There was no real challenge. It was a nice time, but also frustrating because of those group processes.
The only learning outcome that I experienced apart from regarding to group processes was to go back to where you last saw your track, if you recognize that you have lost it. Don´t try to find another track if you don´t now exactly where you are. Weh ad to carry our maountain bikes for one and a half hours through mud and over stones in Jegersberg because we tried to find a new path.
And always double-check your equipment – repairing a tire with a broken pump isn´t going to work out.
