Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Participation during the visit
Specifi c success criteria that you should consider
individually and as a group include:
•
The destination itself - was it suitable for your age
Having spent a long time planning the visit, the time
has fi nally arrived to set off on your journey. Let's hope
that you have played a full and active part in helping
plan the study visit and will carry your enthusiasm with
you while actually at the destination.
group, were the learning opportunities it offered
suitable for your course, was the time of year you
visited suitable?
•
Accommodation - was it suitable in terms of
location, facilities, access to other tourist amenities
and facilities, e.g. currency outlets, medical centres,
shops?
Responsibilities to yourself include ensuring your
personal health, safety and security at all times by not
taking unnecessary risks and always behaving in an
appropriate manner. Time management is important as
well, since you don't want keep your fellow students,
staff and possibly other holidaymakers waiting. You
should also make sure that you stick within the budget
that you have set yourself for the visit, allowing enough
to buy those all-important presents for family and
friends at home!
•
Travel - were the travel arrangements to, from and
within the destination effi cient and good value for
money?
•
Duration - was the length of the study visit about
right, too short, too long?
•
Visits and talks - were these at the right level and
Responsibilities to the rest of your group include being
a good 'buddy' by making sure that everybody is safe
and secure at all times, providing support when needed
and acting responsibly and positively at all times. You
will come into contact with a wide range of other people
while in the destination, such as fellow passengers, staff
in the accommodation, holidaymakers, representatives
of tourist organisations and facilities, and local people.
You should treat everybody with the same respect
and consideration that you wish to receive. It's very
important to remember that, while on the visit, you
are representing your institution and course, as well
as yourself. Having a positive approach to the visit will
ensure that you gain the most from the experience and
members of your group are seen as ambassadors for
your college/school.
relevant to your course?
•
Budget and expenditure - did the study visit come
in on budget and were you able to keep within your
personal spending limit?
Evaluation
Having considered some of the factors against which
you can measure the success of the study tour, it is now
time to think about the evaluation methods to use,
each of which is designed to stimulate debate about
strengths and weaknesses of aspects of the tour, plus
highlighting areas for improvement that may be useful
for future study tour groups. The three main evaluation
methods you can use are personal evaluation, peer
evaluation and tutor evaluation.
Success criteria
Your personal evaluation should relate back to whether
you think you achieved the objectives you set for
yourself earlier in this unit. Questions to consider
include whether you:
The most important test of success for the study tour
is whether the aims and objectives you devised for the
study visit were met - remember that you used the
agreed set of objectives developed by your group and
added your own personal or career-related objectives,
to come up with a list of objectives that were specifi c
to you. You should review each objective and decide
whether or not the objective had been fully met, giving
reasons for your comments.
•
Took an active part in the pre-tour planning;
•
Contributed fully to the educational aspects of the
study tour;
•
Took full advantage of the visits and talks by guest
speakers;
