Site Visit, Brooklyn Bridge Park
Karen Goodlad, https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/members/karengoodlad/
Department of Hospitality Management, School of Professional Studies
HMGT 1101, Perspectives of Hospitality Management, https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/groups/goodlad-hmgt1101-f14/
Activity Description: Provide a brief description of the activity
Engage in a site visit of the Brooklyn Bridge Park as well as the surrounding community and lead discussions about tourism on the Brooklyn Waterfront as it pertains to a particular area of tourism.
Learning Goals: What do you aim to achieve with this activity?
A number of goals can be achieved through this place-based activity. Student Learning Outcomes
• Discuss scope of the hospitality and tourism industry
• Gather information from observation in regard to the hospitality industry from a local, national and global perspective
• Evaluate and apply information discerningly from a variety of sources
Timing: At what point in the lesson or semester do you use this activity? How much classroom time do you devote to it? How much out-of-class time is expected?
This activity is positioned early in the semester in order to provide an example of critical observation. But it can be conducted at any point in the semester. Weather is consideration.
An entire class session (2 ½ hours) is devoted to the place-based activity. Students meet at the designated location which is in walking distance to campus, consideration is given to ensure students coming from or going to other classes can do so without concern of being late. In addition to the actual day of visit, 10 minutes is dedicated during the prior class session and 5 minutes in the subsequent class session.
Outside of class it is expected that a student would spend 30-45 minutes in preparation and 15 minutes to reflect. The information gathered can be used to support future assignments.
Logistics: What preparation is needed for this activity? What instructions do you give students? Is the activity low-stakes, high-stakes, or something else?
Faculty should communicate with any industry partners that may be involved in the activity. I secure the date 4-6 weeks in advance and confirm 2 weeks and 1 week prior.
Students receive instruction about the subject specific prep they must do, and are asked to bring facts about tourism as well as the Brooklyn Waterfront in particular. They are also asked to learn about the industry partners that might be involved. In this case The Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy and Brooklyn Roasting Company. In addition, they are told how to find the meeting location and are asked to exchange phone numbers with at least two other classmates.
The activity is low stakes but is used as a support parts for two other written research projects.
High-Impact Educational Practices: Which of these practices based on George Kuh’s High Impact Educational Practices (and other innovative approaches) does this activity incorporate? Choose all that apply.
First-year seminars and experiences, Collaborative assignments and projects, Open Digital Pedagogy (the OpenLab), Place-Based Learning, Brooklyn Waterfront
Assessment: How do you assess this activity? What assessment measures do you use? Do you use a VALUE rubric? If not, how did you develop your rubric? Is your course part of the college-wide general education assessment initiative?
A rubric is not used for this particular activity. Assessment is conducted through reflection.
This course is part of the Gen Ed Assessment initiative but other assignments are used (Information Literacy and Oral Communication).
Reflection: How well did this activity work in your classroom? Would you repeat it? Why or why not? What challenges did you encounter, and how did you address them? What, if anything, would you change? What did students seem to enjoy about the activity?
The first time I used this activity was 2011 and it has been an important part of the course ever since. I feel that when teaching, especially first time freshman, it is valuable to model what you expect and use scaffolding techniques.
There are challenges in all assignments and activities, for this one in particular I have found that working with industry partners needs to be done in a diligent manner.
I usually change all my assignments and activities in a small way each time I teach them. In 2014, and then repeated in 2015, I shifted to having the students come prepared with historical facts about the Brooklyn Waterfront instead of having a representative from the Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy lead that activity. They seem to find similar facts to the professional representative and are more engaged in the process. The activity is structured in a way that can easily include the shifting development of the waterfront and changes in our student population from year to year and class to class.
Over and over again I find that this is the first time students are at the Brooklyn Bridge Park and are seriously considering what happens on the Brooklyn waterfront. They have expressed excitement about the actual location and meeting with industry professionals. Though the immediate learning opportunity is valuable I find that when students come to me 6 months or a year plus later and say “Remember when we went to the park? That was so cool. I brought my family there to show them all the things that happen there” that the time invested in preparing for and participating in the activity will have positive lasting effects. It is a great way to support critical observation.
Additional Information: Please share any additional comments and further documentation of the activity – e.g. assignment instructions, rubrics, examples of student work, etc. These could be in the form of PDF or Word files, links to posts or files on the OpenLab, etc.
Site visit advice for students: https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/goodlad-hmgt1101-fall15/site-visits/
Day of assignment: https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/goodlad-hmgt1101-fall15/site-visits/brooklyn-bridge-park/
Student reflection: https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/goodlad-hmgt1101-fall15/category/brooklyn-bridge-park-submissions/
Student reflection: https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/goodlad-hmgt1101-fall15/category/brooklyn-bridge-park-submissions/
