10 Tips For Teachers to Ease the Stress of Planning a Museum Field Trip
September 8, 2022
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By Kristin Martin
Marketing Director
Former Museum of World Treasures Education Director
Dear Educators,
We know that planning a visit to the museum can be stressful. Here are 10 tips we've learned during our years of working with teachers just like you. We hope these make it easier for you to visualize a wonderful, memorable day at the museum with your students.
1. Quickly Browse Available Resources for Information
During our years of leading tours for many, many groups, we’ve picked up a few tips and tricks to help make field trips run smoothly. Many of these we’ve put into pdfs and uploaded to our In-Person Field Trips webpage.
In addition, we put all of the basics about group size, cost, adult to child ratio needs, and more right there so you can implement it into your planning.
2. Think of Several Dates and Times That Work For Your field trip
Our Tour Request Form has room for you to request up to three dates and times. This helps us to accommodate as many groups throughout the year as possible.
3. Consider What Field Trip Schedule Works Best for Your Group
For many groups, any visit longer than three hours can be an attention span stretch. Museums are of course places where we have to use our indoor manners and long stretches of time can be a challenge for excited learners. Oftentimes a two hour visit is the perfect amount of time, especially for younger groups.
If you are wanting your group to visit for a full day, be sure and pick a date before April and May. During those months, we are only able to book half day trips due to demand.
In addition, if your group has more than 90 people, it may be good to have different classes visit on different days. Some schools that visit us regularly have half of their students visit in the morning and half visit in the afternoon. As our Museum only has limited space and limited staff, trying to accommodate too many students at once can lead to a lot of stress and noise overlap. Several museum field trip veterans have found splitting their group can provide a calmer, more enjoyable experience.
4. Know What You Want Your Students to Get Out of Their Visit
The most productive and educational field trips often come when the teacher is able to effectively communicate to Museum staff what they hope for their students to experience. If you are a sixth grade teacher looking to have your students introduced to all of the ancient civilizations exhibits, be sure to let the Museum educators know during your booking.
In addition, if you are hoping that your group will have time to roam freely to look at exhibits, be sure to communicate that to Museum staff as well. Oftentimes, if you don’t tell us exactly what you’re looking we miss the opportunities you were hoping for.
Are you worried about forgetting something important? Our Tour Request Form has been carefully tailored through years of tours to try and capture any requests or concerns you might have and give us all of the information we might need. If you think of something after booking, you can always email us and let us know.
5. Be Prepared to Set the Tone for your Students
The role of a teacher during a field trip can be a very challenging one. There is often no telling how students will react to a new, exciting environment. Many teachers and adults are left wondering what their role is during the field trip while a Museum educator is leading. The answer is simple: your role as an adult is to set the tone for the students.
Providing a high quality tour can be incredibly difficult for the Museum educator if teachers or chaperones are disengaged from problematic student behaviors or actively distracting the students.
However, the absolute best tours take place when the teacher supports the work Museum educators are doing by providing direction to the students as needed using your already developed classroom management skills. Students who receive a teacher’s expectations for the trip while in the classroom before even leaving have, in our experience, the easiest time acclimating to the Museum environment and enjoying their time in a productive way.
A good collaboration between Museum educator, teachers, and chaperones allows for the Museum educator to focus on offering amazing educational content as the teacher is adeptly taking on the role of directing the students’ and parents’ energy and attention to the activities at hand.
6. Consider which activities are a good fit for your group
At Museum of World Treasures, we offer guided tours, hands-on activities, adult and child team scavenger hunts, Museum store visit time, free exploration time, lunch space use, and more. Each group has different needs.
While Museum store visits may not be a good fit for many groups, we do encourage you to consider fitting this into your visit time. We have found that Museum Store visits offer a good learning opportunity for kids in money handling, buying etiquette, and more.
7. Make sure you’ll have the right number of adults and how you will split your group
We ask that all groups have at least one adult for every 10 students. This is especially important if your group is going to do scavenger hunts, Museum store time, or free exploration. Having plenty of adults can help facilitate a great experience and provide a great experience for parents and kids alike. However, beware of bringing too many parents! This is your students' big day and we want them to take center stage.
Also, all groups over 30 people are split into smaller groups to facilitate better educational experiences. Please check the confirmation sent to you after booking to see how many groups you’ll be split into. Many teachers plan out how their group will split in advance of arriving. This significantly reduces the stress at the beginning of the visit and results in much happier teachers, students, and Museum staff!
8. Browse provided materials and help students prepare
In advance of your visit, several very helpful resources will be sent to you. These include your schedule, a bus parking map, a list of FAQs and expectations, and our Museum Manners sheet. These are to assist you in getting your students ready for their visit. The bus parking map can also help your driver find a spot.
9. Call Up a Museum Educator To Resolve Any Remaining Concerns
At this point you may still have concerns. Or maybe your head is spinning from all this information! That is okay. The easiest way to get some of the nerves cleared up is to talk to a Museum educator. We do this day in and day out and often have quick resolutions to sticky problems. A quick call even prior to submitting a Tour Request Form can help clarify your ideas.
10. Trust the process and have fun!
Are there a lot of moving parts to getting a museum field trip set up? Yes. However, we find the more work we are able to do before you even arrive, the smoother the visit goes for you and your students. Our goal is to be as organized and in tune with your wishes as possible so your field trip is easy, fun, and, most importantly, a great educational opportunity!
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