How to Customize Your Immersion Program With EdOdyssey

Congrats, you’re interested in organizing a custom immersion program to have your students abroad! You might have a good understanding of the type of custom program that you’re looking into or perhaps you’re just starting to consider opportunities abroad. We customize programs for faculty-led programs and high school immersion programs in Peru, China, Italy, Spain or Canada.

In both cases, we want to understand your learning objectives, your goals, and your institutional needs to create the best possible custom program for you and your students.

As we start the conversation with you about your program preferences, we encourage you to ask yourself these three important questions:

What is Your Area of Interest?

It is important to determine which subject you think your students would most benefit from and which type of custom program best complements your goals and learning objectives. Our programs can focus on a wide range of content areas related to cultural immersion and discovery, service, language learning, and history - to name a few.

The custom nature of our programs show students firsthand how their area of study can be applicable in their everyday life. These programs add a new context to the study materials and allow the student to cultivate a personal connection to what they are learning.

Most importantly, we handle all the logistics! From the pre-departure to the return to the United States, your students can focus on the academic side of the experience. We want to make sure that you’re able to invest your time and energy into making sure that students meet their goals, and we are available to provide international medical insurance and 24/7 support while you’re with us.

What Do You Want Your Students to Gain?

Every choice made in the custom program creation process is intentional. We want to give your students as many opportunities as possible to visit a site, experience a class, or witness a cultural event that reinforces their subjects of interest, aligns with their academic goals, and encourages reflection.

Our job as EdOdyssey educators centers around making sure that both teachers and students have a fun and safe experience. We design programs that center around culturally and academically enriching activities so all of us can view every experience from a comparative lens.

During the program, we constantly assess each student’s state of mind as we go through our program. How is everyone feeling? Does anyone need to rest? We like to take a proactive approach because we understand that every student has different needs.

We aim to do informal reflections during the program, and a large group reflection at the end. We’ve found that students not only remember key highlights, but they have a lasting emotional connection to them, too.

If you have specific learning objectives that you need to follow as a part of a curriculum, you can communicate those goals ahead of time. We can design the custom program for you to meet the academic focus for you and your students.

How Will You Incorporate Those Experiences Abroad and Lessons For your students?

When the program is over and your students are back in a familiar environment, they will get back into their respective routines. However, we want them to remember the lessons from experiences from their EdOdyssey program. In the past, we’ve had reunions with teachers and students shortly after our programs together to see how they’ve stayed connected with their experience and how it has impacted them.

We’ve noticed that the group reflections have created a safe space in which students feel comfortable speaking their minds, even after the programs. For the students, it is reassuring to see that their fellow students and teachers might have made a similar connection or observation.

These reflections will highlight the change in perspective and personal development of your students. With access to these student reflections, you can revisit important topics and pivotal experiences. Constant informal assessments and group conversations are a great way to incorporate the program’s takeaways in your classroom.

Do you want to read more about our custom programs? Definitely check out our Four Major Benefits of Customizable Programs!