Educators employ educational tours to give their students an opportunity to see the subject matter they’re teaching up close, personal and in 3D.
There’s nothing more exciting that taking students into the field, where they can discover the real-world truth about what they’re studying. It’s a tool like no other, when it comes to getting their message across and embedded in the minds of the young people they teach.
How to make educational tours memorable and exciting is both a thrill and a challenge for teachers. So how do you do it up right?
Finding the balance.
Teachers believe in structured leaning, geared to reaching educational objectives. Balancing that requirement with allowing students to discover things for themselves is where the fun is at.
The direct experience of being in the middle of the action is what makes educational tours so valuable. Whether your tour is focused on American history, art, fashion, or finance, the thrill of walking into the heart of the action is what makes it all so special.
While it’s important that students remember things like dates, names and places, it’s also important that they be provided with hands-on learning as part of the educational tour. Whether that’s creating a narrated video, a slide slow, a brief article, or a model, hands on expression of the learning encountered makes it much more real.
Challenging students to “own” their experiences on an educational tour is where their sense of contact with the subject catalyzes, becoming uniquely personal and valuable.
A lab experience.
Taking your students on an educational tour has the advantage of providing them with a lab. In the same way that science teachers give their students hands-on lab experience, you can give students in any subject something similar, with careful curation and planning.
Preparation begins, of course, in the classroom. Students need to be a given a strong grounding in the topic at hand that gives them enough confidence to conduct their own interface with it, while on tour.
By creating a three-fold structure for your educational tour – pre-tour, in-the-field and post-tour, you’re building a model which supports the goals of the in-the-field portion. By preparing your students for what they’ll encounter, they’re able to anticipate where their learning journey is taking them. By providing them with a platform to de-brief, following the tour, you’re asking that they share their perspectives.
The three-folk structure encourages enhanced engagement with the subject matter and challenges your students to find the fun in what they’ve seen. They’re accountable, because you’ve created a structure which demands that they share what they’ve learned with the group.
Memorable, exciting tours with Peak.
At Peak Performance Tours, we know all about how to make educational tours memorable and exciting, because we’ve been doing it for 2 decades.
Your students get the most from their tour, while teacher educational goals are met and exceeded. With logistical excellence, intimate destination knowledge and professional execution, we bring teachers and students the very best in educational tours.
Contact us to find out more.
Leave a Reply