Thursday, January 30, 2014

Piloting New HS Trips with the Class of 2016

Last semester the Advisory Council (the High School Leadership Team) decided to use a design thinking process to re-imagine our high school trips. Over the past few years the feedback that we have received from teachers and students is that they are "good" but not "great". So, we defined our task as the following.


"Redesign the experiences to make them indispensable and unforgettable so that the mission and core values come to to life."

To do this we did the following:
  • Reviewed student and teacher surveys from this past year.
  • Held focus groups with small groups of 11th and 12th graders to brainstorm the possibilities.
  • Informally gathered information from teachers.
  • Met with travel agents to brainstorm options.
  • Surveyed other international schools to research what other schools are doing.
From feedback from students we learned that many students wanted us to consider offering choices that allowed students to explore their passions and service opportunities. When we asked about other characteristics students mentioned that the prefer the following:
  • Immersion in a new environment
  • Learning new and different skills
  • Thinking about others (Service)
  • Learning with a group
  • Visiting new places
  • Stepping outside their comfort zone
After several iterations of trip scenarios we decided to present a plan to the grade 10 students. The pilot is to give next year's 11th graders multiple options to choose from. This means that there will be smaller groups traveling to different locations during the week of September 15.
  • Scuba Diving in Fernando de Noronha
  • Immersion in Amazon (on boat)
  • Ilha do Cardozo Trip
  • Hiking in Patagonia
  • Local Build with Teto
  • Experiencing Sampa
  • Internships
  • College Visit Trip in United States
The survey results show that the overwhelming majority of students favor this new model.



We are now in the process of gathering feedback from parents and teachers to find out if these trips will become a reality. If we pilot them in September 2014 we plan to have students sign up and commit to trip later this semester.

We are interested in hearing your thoughts on rolling out these trips to next year's 11th grade students. What do you think? What questions to you have? Please share your comments and questions using the comment feature below.

8 comments:

  1. Hi. Thanks for this initiative. As a parent, of a family new to Brazil, I think that what could be most life-changing for these students would be the Building of Shelters Locally with Teto. Graded is a school where the vast majority of the students have many opportunities annually to travel with their own parents.If the parents prefer to ski in Switzerland instead of scuba dive in Fernando de Noronha, I don't consider either to be life-changing.However, the reality is that most students at Graded never have lasting contact with the "other Sao Paulo." Not the baladas and chofer-driver bullet-proof cars, but the day-to-day reality of the vast majority of the citizens of the city where we all live. Additionally, I am totally against this time being used for college visits to the US or internships (unless they are with organizations such as Teto.) These are not value-added activites for Graded students. I would not allow my child to participate. Thank you for allowing me to share my reflections.

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    1. Thanks for your comments and ideas. We did want to provide students and parents with choices because we realize that there are different views on trips. Our leadership team is very supportive of trips that include service, especially since our Mission includes, "engaged, ethical citizens in a dynamic world." The challenge that we need to overcome is that we need to find projects that are meaningful and can be done in 1 week. This means that we need to develop partnerships with organizations that can work with us to organize the week. Chances are that there will be little time for students to prepare in advance. We have two significant projects here at Graded, Ilha do Cardozo and Teto, and we would love to use them since we have a relationship with the community/organization. The timing may not work out for either one. We will continue to search for meaningful projects and hope to offer multiple ones to students. Hopefully we'll be able to offer a variety of these types of trips next year. Blair Peterson

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    2. Mr. Horcajo, I agree with you 100%!

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  2. I agree in full with Mr. Horcajo's comment above, and would like to add that the cost of these trips should be taken into account since they add up to the already stretched school bill which includes MUN trips, Band trips, PGC trips and all sorts of other fantastic activities which are just as, if not more, relevant to the students.

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    1. We are certainly aware that cost will be a factor and realize that some of the trips will cost more than what has been charged in the past. There will also be trips that will cost considerably less so our hope is that there will be variety. We are working on providing at least two service trips and including service work into the other ones. Vera, thanks for you input.

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  3. Hi Blair, like the other two parents I vote for the activities with a take home value and the Internship as well. The other trips which can be quite expensive, i.e. Fernando de Noronha, and a diving certificate for each student to make the most of the trip. Unless the class could choose between more than one destiny, the College Visits are valid only for the one’s who are definitely going to the US. Thanks for opportunity to participate on the survey. Best. Monica

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  4. Hi Blair, like the other two parents I vote for the activities with a take home value and the Internship as well. The other trips can be quite expensive. i.e. Fernando de Noronha, which will require a diving certificate for each student to make the most of it. Unless the class could choose between more than one destiny, the College Visits are valid only for the one’s who are definitely going to the US. Thanks for opportunity to participate on the survey. Best. Monica

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  5. Blair
    From what I understood the idea would be to offer more than one trip for this group of Juniors, all of them with some academic component and/or community service experience.
    I think it is a great ideas as students would be able to engage a bit more in exploring a topic of their choice, in a smaller group, with a ''take home" experience. As a science-biology teacher I am a suporter of activities students can interact directly with nature, learning to respect the environment and understanding that eco-tourism is a great source of income, yet harmless to the environment. Fernando de Noronha being an option does not necessarily requires scuba diving certified students, as I truly believe, having been there several times with groups, that you gain as much from snorkelling as you do from diving. Not to mention all the other possibilities such as helping with turtle eggs hatching, observing dolphins fascinating animal behavior in their environment, understanding human impact in relation to allien species; just to mention a few.
    The Amazon, Pantanal, Lençois Maranhenses, Jericoacoara are also places where one can combine service and science as part of a great week trip. I am very excited to experience this new model.

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Members of the Graded community are encouraged to comment and all comments are moderated by Blair Peterson, the High School Principal.