What Is An Educational Tour? How Educational Tour Does Benefit A Student?

what is an educational tour

Presently students, in various fields of study, are participating in educational tours, to have a better and more practical view about their field of study. Now, the question is what is an educational tour? It was an unfathomed aspect of studying, even a few years back. Now, the schools, colleges, and universities are giving more importance to it as they provide a rich experience, an experience never felt before.

Educational tours are immersive group touring experiences that students participate in a group. They engage, play, and learn along with the program in a practical and a more entertaining way. These experiential learning programs increase their overall learning experience by taking them to new places.

Educational Tours

An educational tour is of great fun, but people with little idea about it may confuse it with vacations. This is the primary thing that should be kept in mind. There are proper differences between educational tours and vacations. In student educational tours, the students are treated to a visual experience of what they have been learning so far, which has a deep impact on what they learn. Typically led by teachers and group chaperones, they get in touch with unlimited global learning and get a firsthand experience of various cultures. They gain the capacity to appreciate different corners of the world and as they socialize and interact with the local people, they have a broader perspective of life.

Benefits of educational tours

Let us have a look into the multitude of benefits, educational tours have.

Interacting with locals:

When it is simple classroom teaching, the students see the world through a glass, which their teacher asks them to wear. They are not exposed to the various thoughts and perspectives of the people in other parts of the world or the country. When they interact with people from different cultures, not only will they learn about different views, values, and perspectives but they will also learn to empathize with them. There are various aspects of social interaction like greeting or acceptable topics of discussion. The students will get enlightened about all of them.

Connecting different issues:

Whatever is read in the history books, will have no significance, till that place is visited and the flavors are smelled. When the students study various historical issues and form an idea about a certain culture, often they might have a wrong notion regarding a culture. They will learn in a more concrete way and understand how political, socioeconomic, political and other environmental issues are connected, once they tie their shoelaces for educational field trips. Most importantly, the B2B educational trip organizers in India organize various experiential activities, helping the children to benefit more from the outings. They can be asked to maintain journals and take interesting photos to have a valuable contribution to their knowledge.

Instilling a passion for traveling: 

As portrayed beautifully by the legendary Satyajit Ray, in his film Agantuk, learning is incomplete without traveling. During the tours, students are guided not through the pages of the book but by experiences. The learning becomes more enjoyable through travels and the students have a broadened understanding of the world. Some of them might even realize their passion for knowing more about countries and cultures and turn it into a rewarding career. 

Cultural observation:

On a good educational tour, the students experience the nuances of a different culture. Again the organizers arrange for activities like volunteering or intermingling with people from different socioeconomic backgrounds. These experiences help the students to develop a deep understanding of how a country is run, what more needs to be done, and what are the scopes for development. They can get inspired to work towards a change.

With their experiences in different cultures, the students will learn to introspect the situations in their homeland in a different way. Once they become aware of the situations affecting other parts of the country or the world, they can work for a change in their own state, city or country. By this time, there must be a fair idea of how an educational tour does benefit a student.

Student educational tours-A new approach to education

There is a very famous saying in education, “Education is what remains when you forget everything you have learned. The same is the condition of our education system, in India. We are only taught to remember the language of the books and apply it in the exams. It is like committing to memory and vomiting in exams. Our education system is highly administered by how much marks we are getting at the end of the day. The same syllabus repeats itself year after year and it ends up in the students depending on rote learning, to quantify how much they have learned.

This educational tour in India is of great importance. We have to understand that Newton formulated the laws of gravitation, only when he was sitting under an apple tree and not when he was in his classroom. The present system of education in India also has very little place for extracurricular activities but boast of full personality development. The current approach of studying science subjects has also become rotten and is not able to amaze the students with the wonders of science.

So the question arises, what is the remedy? The answer is to change the system of education drastically. More experimental and practical teaching has to be done. When a geography book teaches about stalactites and stalagmites, the students should be taken to a place with these geographical formations, to understand what these objects actually are. Thus a school trip India is the need of the hour.

Educational tour itinerary

When planning an itinerary for educational tours, the schools or colleges should always plan it with a professional educational travel consultant. The tour guides should be well versed with the conditions in the streets and the stories revolving the places of attractions. The educational travel consultants should have qualified individuals to work for a well planned educational tour. The goal of an educational trip is to deliver the greatest standards of learning experience to the group and to keep the travel tour on schedule.

For a proper trip, an educational tour itinerary should be planned much before the tour. An experienced tour operator focuses on various activities based on acquiring life skills. This is known as experiential learning. These activities are designed and conducted in an interactive ambiance so that the students learn everything but in an informal environment. They do not have to keep themselves confined within the four walls of the classroom and restrict themselves from asking questions.

Some Insights:

  • Ideally, to make the kids familiar with every member of the trip, there should be a welcome speech and formal introduction to every member of the group. The children should be made aware of the go-to persons of the group in case of emergencies, like the chaperones, the destination experts, etc. After that, breakfast can be served and the expedition for the nearby places of attraction can be started. Otherwise, the students can be asked to engage in the activities, scheduled for them.
  • For visiting a place like a museum, there can be group activities. The entire group can be divided into teams and activities can be charted out for them. These activities will help in the development of skills like team building, time management, and leadership. After the visit, children can assemble for their lunch.
  • By the end of the day, some informal activities can be arranged. Also, if it is a one day trip, they can start preparing to come back. If it is more than a day’s trip, the same schedule can be followed the next day as well. The only thing that is to be kept in mind that all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. So, there should be ample scopes for the students to enjoy their trip as well.

Industrial visits for college students

The college life basically prepares the students to get ready for life. The college students have to get ready for the big bad world, both professionally and personally. If along with classroom learning, industrial trips can be arranged for them, their education will be complete from all spheres. Industrial visits have their own importance, especially in shaping the career of a student who is pursuing a professional degree. Industrial visits are considered an important part of a college curriculum and the purpose of these visits are to provide the students with insights regarding how a company works.

Theoretical knowledge is never sufficient for making a good professional career. If the students aim to go beyond academics, they have to participate in industrial visits to get practical exposure to their preferred field of work. Thus, industrial visits for college students are of great importance. The college trips also help in invoking a sense of entrepreneurship among the students. Today’s world is in search of entrepreneurs to help boost economic conditions. Industrial visits provide an excellent opportunity for the students, to interact with the industries and know more about the industrial policies, rules, regulations and in short the industrial environment.

These visits are considered to be one of the most tactical methods of teaching and the main reason behind this is that they let the students learn practically, merely by interaction, employment practices, and working methods. The students also get exposure from the academic point of view. Thus, there is an emerging need for a good and reliable college trip organizer with good contacts in the industry.

Need and significance of study tour

Proper education is not only about reading books and solving questions but also attaining knowledge by experiencing them practically. Practical experience is an integral part of education. Thus, traveling adds to our experience and knowledge and should be considered an important part of education.

In this connection, traveling to places has two purposes, pleasure and acquiring experience. In both cases, knowledge is bound to be derived. As far as we are interested in education and traveling, traveling should be made compulsory for students. The need and significance of study tour can be enumerated as follows:

  • Whatever is studied from the textbooks, have to be verified in the light of reality. Only when this is done, the knowledge earned from the books can be implemented easily. For achieving this condition, there must be sufficient opportunities for traveling in the form of educational tours and excursions.
  • There are certain subjects that cannot be learned from textbooks. Subjects like Geography and History and some branches of science have to be highlighted by experiential practices. For perfect knowledge in these subjects, the students must be patronized and inspired to go on educational tours.
  • Last but not least, education without pleasure is always ineffectual and prosaic. The process of education in which there are recreational facilities proves to be most effective.

How to organize educational tours?

It is always advisable to take the help of school trip organizers, or college tour organizers whether it is a day trip or something more extensive. There should be fun as well as some learning to keep everyone engaged. Some tips to keep in mind before educational tours are organized are:

Planning should be done in advance:

Planning a trip for the students takes a much longer time than what actually thinks. If it is an international journey, there should be a proper arrangement of visas. If there is a larger group, the accommodation part has to be looked after, well in advance. The logistics part has to be sorted first, before the fun and the educational activities are arranged.

The costs should be kept down:

The costs of travel should always be minimized as much as possible. Some of the students might not be able to attend if the costs are too high. The trip should be made accessible to as many students as possible. This will be the real success of an educational trip.

The students and the parents have to be prepared:

The trip leader should set up the last meeting with the students and the parents before the journey starts. This will be the time when he or she will get to know any kind of medication prescribed for a particular student. Also, he/ she will get a chance to make the rules and regulations clear and inform the students about anything he wants them to bring for the journey.

Group activities should be planned:

The activities should be planned beforehand to make sure that on the day, they are carried out, there is no confusion and there is a smooth implementation of all of them.

Educational tour companies

Nowadays, many primary and secondary schools and colleges are attached to specialized school and college tour operators. These school tour operators and college trip organizers work along with the educators and teachers and make their tasks easy. This is a very recent concept, wherein the organizers lend their expertise to work towards a fruitful learning journey for the students, in the form of traveling. Now, why are they so vital for the educational system?

They help in adopting an interactive style of teaching by organizing field trips, both domestic and international. They help in going for experiential learning. What is experiential learning? As the name suggests, experiential learning is learning with the help of experience. The benefits of experiential learning are many.

  • It helps in the immediate application of knowledge in order to solve real-life problems and real-world challenges.
  • Experiential learning has a debriefing session where the learners receive feedback after the completion of every session. Thus, they attain more experience and perfection.
  • Reading a book or attending lectures never helps in having the same experience as an actual activity helps in having. It builds effective communication skills and proper teamwork.
  • When a learner can self-monitor how much he or she has learned, that is considered the best form of learning. Experiential learning helps in self-introspection and having a smooth transition from being a novice to an expert.
  • As there is a 360-degree feedback loop, pouring in from all quarters, the learners can improve to a great extent, through experiential learning. In the traditional system of learning, the only measurement of success is sitting for an exam and getting scores.

Think of Pencil Voyages When You Think Of A Great Learning Experience

The search for an experienced and able tour operator ends in Pencil Voyages, who have been conducting activity-based tours for a long time now. Some exclusive services provided by them are:

  • Creating exclusive experiences for the students, by organizing for them customized excursions. We have programs for schools, colleges, universities and other educational and skill development organizations.
  • We ensure that our trips are capable of developing teamwork skills, leadership and building self-confidence. All our trips are professionally guided and maximize experiential learning.

Specializing in educational trips, adventure tours, industrial visits, domestic excursions, special interest tours, and international expeditions. Speak with our experts to know about all our programs now.