Work

Lifelong Learning and Archeological Field Schools

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: Higher education inculcates in students an enduring curiosity about the world. Accomplishing this goal requires helping undergraduates recognize that learning is a social process occurring within multiple communities of practice. Each of these collectives provides different lenses through which aspects of reality are illuminated, none encompassing all there is to know about a subject. Students thus appreciate that learning is an open-ended processes driven by a curiosity that is never satisfied. Knowledge resulting from that process is forever being refined, a project to which undergraduates can contribute. Appreciating the many ways of knowing the world requires engaging meaningfully with these distinct communities. This is best achieved by participating directly in the work and lives of multiple such collectives. Field schools provide excellent opportunities in which students come to perceive, think about, and act in worlds constituted by the community of archeologists and that comprise people hosting and participating in the investigations. We use our experiences directing an archeological field school in northwest Honduras from 1983-2008 to illustrate how we used this learning environment to help undergraduates make original contributions to knowledge of the area’s past while rethinking who they are and what they are capable of achieving.

Source: Humans

DOI: 10.3390/humans5040032

Authors: Edward Mark Schortman, Patricia Ann Urban

Institution: Kenyon College

Language: English

Topic: Innovative Education and Learning Practices

Subfield: Human Factors and Ergonomics

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Quality education

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $1,207