What is educational tourism or travel? Are you going by the noise or there is more deeper positives outcome of the field trips, excursion, study tours and more.
What do you remember from your school days? A school trip or a tour from your school days, all those treasured memories from school days might still be vivid in thoughts and mind among most of us. These short experiences may have shaped you into what you are doing today. There was something from your school that sparked your curiosity or passion and inculcated your interests in the career you are pursuing today.
A trip to a local grocery store, park, library, museum, planetarium, a community garden or restaurant, each trip contributes to the understanding of the world. When a student ventures out of the classroom they see the connections between what is happening at school and in the ‘real world’. They begin to correlate the real world with what they learn within the walls of the classroom can help them solve the problems they see in the world around them and can have a direct impact on who they become as people.
We are changing the teaching and learning methods, experimenting and adapting to the needs of learners in the fast-paced techno-savvy world. Out-Of-School (OST) set-up in the form of various educational tours is making a direct impact on learning outcomes.
What is Educational Tourism?
A visit to out-of-classroom made for the purpose of observation, learning, relearning is educational tourism. Travel to learn, real-world experience and a fun approach to conceptualise classroom through relearning.
The meticulously planned trips provide a knowledge base of every subject taught in the schools from history, design and technology, geography, science, language and culture, space science etc. Educational field trips as traditionally known are an excellent teaching method and everything taught in the schools could make way in the form of educational tourism.
Why Education Tourism?
There is much noise to bring the changes in the schools in particular and why not? There is research to support that teaching and learning can become inherently spontaneous, and student-centered when moved from the confines of the classroom into the world at large.
“Educational Travel is recognized as important moments of learning, a shared social experience that enhances the learning Out-Of-School-Time (OST).” Supported by research from National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) and National Research Council
The deep learning occurs outside the classroom when a student put into practice what they have studied theoretically about behind the desk into the real world. Field experiences early in a students career can be formative and can inspire students to continue in a filed.
“There is all the right noise from the educators and students themselves, ‘school is boring.’ Educational tours, curriculum extension out-of-the-school time(OST) and collaboration of informal education organization and schools can bring changes in learning and teaching.”
School trips, excursions, project-based tours, exchange programs are a part of the school system for a very long time. What is changing the landscape of the education tours today is the inspirational, planned strategy with learning outcomes experimental learning, collaborative learning experiences from the real world as an extension of the curriculum.
The changing learning needs of the children have changed the face of education travel in the recent years and are relevant.
Benefits of Educational Tour
The educational tours provide opportunities for learning experiences outside the classroom inherently interdisciplinary. When the student go out, they encounter it as a whole and are forced to engage multiple modalities, no matter which pair of interdisciplinary lenses they wear.
Real life learning
Access to tools and environment beyond classrooms
Socio-emotional growth
Academic impact
Longer retention of concept
Better understanding of the whole
Supports student-centric learning
Every learning style student is engaged
Cognitive engagement
Regular and interdisciplinary educational trips help students to develop a range of highly valuable skills. The exposure to external influences, unfamiliar surroundings, and new culture accelerate these skills.
Supports Inculcating Life Skills
Self-confidence
Learn to adapt
Nurture independence
Collaborate and cooperate
Problem solving
Social relations
Every city or region has people and places that can help support learning that cannot be replicated by the internet or in the classroom. This multisensory learning experience brings the one-dimensional textbook lesson to life and creates enthusiasm for a subject that hard to replicate through other media. It is possible with educators and organizations dedicated to bringing the enthusiasm back with a plethora of edu travel programs.