The purpose of this exercise was twofold: first, to prepare student teachers for the community they were joining; and second, to throw them together in active work on a common task in order to build their own sense of community. According to the final course evaluations, the exercise succeeded on both counts.
There were several steps involved in putting the exercise together. In case others would like to replicate or adapt this model, the steps are listed below.
Once I had settled on a dozen spots, I downloaded maps of the area from the MapQuest web site. One global map was used to show all of the sites to be visited, and three more detailed maps were created to help the students find their targets exactly. I manipulated the maps in PhotoShop to include markers showing all 12 locations.
The next step was to prepare documents to hand to the students to guide their travels. There were several distinct types:
9:20 - Assemble into teams of six teams of four and proceed to a specific summer school classroom to observe students.
9:30 - Continue observations of students through recess. Each student teacher was to interview at least one O'Farrell student.
10:00 - Each team was then to get into their cars and go to their two assigned locations, one residential, one commercial/public. Again, each student teacher was to interview one member of the community.
11:15 - Teams were to return to the O'Farrell lab and begin to write their reports.
12:00 - Class over.
The following day, the teams were re-configured. Each person on the team was responsible for compiling the answers to one of the questions asked by each of his/her teammates. The class was then re-organized into four larger teams with six members each. They worked together to answer the more global questions given to them.
Preparations
Before the exercise began, I drove around the community to identify places for the student teachers to visit. I tried to pick a representative sample that would encompass the range of economic levels and age of the housing in the neighborhood.
The Expedition
On the day of the event (only the fourth day of the course), I briefed the students on the schedule. It went something like this:
Continued Synthesis
On the Monday after the experience, the student teachers continued working together in their teams of four to complete their reports. It took an hour on Monday and another hour on Tuesday before they were done.
Pulling it all together
The student teachers saved their work in ClarisWorks, from which it's a simple matter to create an HTML document. I organized the resulting web page in a few hours... and now it's open for perusal both by the student teachers and by members of the community they studied.