We know that having a clear itinerary is important for inclusivity and students like to know what is happening, when it is happening as well as being aware of toilet stops.
However, we have decided not to print out our field handbook for our first year field course. It is 60 pages long and no one really reads it! It is available in electronic format before the field course but not available as a physical copy whilst in the field. We’ve moved to a system of having morning briefings. We have breakfast at the hostel and before we go out we have an overview of what we will be doing, how we will get there, the timetable for the day and the learning objectives. We get students to write it down in their notebooks so they can start to use their notebooks as a planning tool rather than just using them to record data.
