What Are Learning Tours?
There is a call for students to have opportunities to highly develop contemporary skills so that they can engage with purpose and meaning in the world they live. The research and success stories around the world shows that the focus should not be of content driven schooling supported by standardised testing but on more experiential based pedagogies supporting the growth of skills such as critical thinking, curiosity, collaboration, deep empathy, entrepreneurship, innovation, resilience, grit etc. It is with this call that these learning tours have been developed as rich professional learning experiences with the opportunity to visit schools that are leading the way in Contemporary transformation.
Benefits of Learning Tours
Community building
Lutheran schools and early childhood services value the richness and diversity of the wider community and other education sectors. Positive and strategic partnerships are developed and maintained with students, families, local Christian communities, the broader community and Lutheran education. The relationships are built upon support, collaboration, trust and reconciliation.
Contemporary Learning tours allow for staff in Lutheran schools to engage with the community through school and industry visits and immersions. People have the opportunity to build and strengthen connection and strategic partnerships with a richly diverse set of schools and community organisations who are engaged in implementing contemporary education practice and who are willing to share and engage with us with the aim to allow all children to be part of the very best possible education experience.
Ongoing improvement and innovation
Improvement in Lutheran schools and early childhood services is guided by its values, vision and mission. Excellence is pursued through a culture of reflection, collaboration, innovation and creativity. Evidence is gathered to develop and implement improvement plans and policies for the continuous development of teaching and learning, the institution and its facilities. Ongoing professional learning encourages all members of the community to achieve high standards and develop their service and leadership capacity.
Our Contemporary Learning tours engage with Lutheran, government and independent schools who are demonstrating and willing to share the ways that they are innovating, collaborating and using research and evidence to determine what best and next practice looks like in their context. All schools that we engage with on tours are engaged in an ongoing journey of reflection, innovation and transformation.
Staff in Lutheran Schools are committed to growing ourselves and our personal and professional capabilities
Learning and adapting
Involves the desire to learn and grow in one’s professional vocation. It includes being open-minded to new information and feedback from others, objectively considering other interpretations and demonstrating a readiness to adapt thinking and practice. At its strongest, it involves the capacity to transform one’s habitual, mental and emotional patterns. This includes consciously choosing alternate ways of thinking, feeling and acting that enable us to reach our highest potential as leaders in Lutheran education.
Our Contemporary learning tours challenge each individual to be open-minded as they engage with educators and professionals to observe, engage and reflect on what the experiences on a learning tour might mean within their own school context and community. On tours people are challenged by the visits and immersions and the fellow tour participants to adapt their thinking, wrestle with provocations. They are given time to reflect and plan for change back in their own school that will contribute to an informed and strategic transformation that keeps Lutheran Education at the forefront of innovation practice in education.