Facilitating and learning behavior in a secondary school travel studies program

This study examines the activities of 17 students and four teachers who participated in a 15 day study tour to South Africa, Zimbabwe and Botswana. It describes how the school staff, who planned and conducted this tour, accomplished their supervising, teaching and facilitating tasks. The study seeks to determine how the students learned during this academic program and how travel to a foreign country affected their learning. The researcher accomplished the study as a participant observer, observing and interviewing students and staff while they were involved with the tour. Other data was collected by reviewing documents and analyzing responses to a questionnaire. Findings concerning the staff's participation are descriptive in nature. The researcher followed an analytic progression to describe actions of the school's board, administration and travel staff during the southern Africa program and describes what the staff's activities caused students to do. The investigation of student activities uses an interpretive approach to the analysis of collected data. It describes their activity and attributes intent to their behavior. Through the descriptions of the staff's activities and the analysis of the students' activities the researcher was able to answer the questions originally posed for the investigation; How do educators facilitate learning during foreign travel studies programs for a secondary school and how do students learn during these tours? The study found that the Lake Worth Christian School's staff developed and implemented the southern Africa program using procedures that were predetermined by school policy and procedures developed specifically for this particular trip and the students who were selected for it. The study found that the school staff utilized both classroom and experiential instruction methodology to prepare students for their encounters and to facilitate their learning in the field. With regard to students' learning activities the study found they accepted and understood the concept of experiential education. Students demonstrated an overwhelming enthusiasm for learning through direct involvement with their subject matter. The study confirmed a dominant social nature of the students' activities and suggested that the convivial atmosphere both attracted the students and enhanced their learning process. The study confirmed that, during the southern Africa program, learning behavior was affected by contrasts and similarities of student characteristics. Students demonstrated wide varieties of interest and significant differences in age and experience. The study also confirmed differences in student and staff approaches to subject matter they encountered within the various historical, cultural and natural sites. It found students approached information gathering differently in these disparate sites.