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.