Using the Contextual Model of Learning to Examine Informal Teacher Professional Development Whilst Accompanying Science Centre Field Trips

Abstract

Whilst outcomes for students on field trips to science centres or museums have been extensively studied, the informal professional development that teachers themselves may experience has been less examined. This study, based on semi-structured interviews with two participants, examines teachers’ experiences when accompanying their students on science field trips using Falk and Dierking’s (2018) Contextual Model of Learning (CML). This allowed for an exploration of the professional development teachers experienced and how various personal, sociocultural and physical contextual factors, as well as time, may have influenced these benefits. The interpretive analysis found that each teacher exper..