Lindsey DeWitt Prat, PhD

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A Note on Teaching in the Field

Students gathered before the Great Buddha Hall at Tōdaiji, Nara.
Students on a forest path during a field visit.

As a teacher, I love taking students out of the traditional classroom setting and into the field. Whether it’s places of living culture, remote natural abodes, archaeological sites, museums, or built environments, I delight in immersing students in active learning experiences.

Even if on-the-ground field study isn’t possible, we can offer students an immersive experience. Think case studies, multi-sensory materials, and virtual experiences, for instance. I really believe that when we maximize opportunities for students to engage with real-world examples, we unlock a lock of doors (and windows, too): we encourage their creativity, empower their confidence, challenge them (and ourselves) in new and different ways, and enable them to develop nuanced perspectives on course material. Simply put, we learn best when we engage the most.

Group photo on stone steps during an early field course.

You can find some of my field teaching syllabi here and here.

Watching an artisan at work at a bench lined with small drawers and tools. Visitors gather around a bronze fixture inside a dim temple hall. Group photo outside a wooden townhouse at dusk, luggage in hand. Walking through snow toward a torii gate on a tree-lined shrine approach. Group photo at an overlook, cameras and tripods ready. Festival participants in white happi coats parade down a shopping street. A Shinto priest stands before a New Year fortune stall. Group photo with monks in a temple courtyard. A student stands beneath a monumental round stone carving. Reading a wall display together on a museum visit. Feet on a floor-sized aerial map, seen from above. North American Post article on the UW study group exploring Japanese religion and architecture.
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