Turn individuals and groups into high-performance leaders and teams. Outward Bound Atlanta creates organizational change through programs customized for your group.

In the wilderness, on a ropes course or in the boardroom, Outward Bound Atlanta can help improve your organization’s performance through leadership, team skills, effective communication and trust.

The Outward Bound Professional curriculum emphasizes individual transformation through challenge and integrates best practices learned from top-performing organizations and organizational development leaders. Outward Bound Professional annually serves more than 7,000 individuals and 400 corporate, non-profit and government organizations, helping them achieve more than they ever thought possible.

The Programs

The most powerful and sustainable learning comes from direct, relevant, concrete experiences. As corporate America’s premier provider of experiential leadership and team development, we will design a custom program to achieve your outcomes. Several broad frameworks exist, including the following:

Immersion Expedition Program

Three-to-five-day, wilderness-based programs are unparalleled for accelerated team performance and breakthrough leadership learning. These are tremendously effective when integrated into your internal leadership initiatives and are powerful as stand-alone team and leadership events. Most programs take place in the North Carolina mountains. The Ten Thousand Islands of Southwest Florida and South America are among other options.

Intensive Insight Program

These one- and two-day programs deliver a powerful team and relationship-building experience that would otherwise take weeks, months or years to develop. Participants will walk away with better knowledge of their colleagues and more open channels of communication and trust. These programs take place at our state-of-the-art Odyssey High Challenge course in Atlanta, truly a next-generation high ropes course, providing significant acceleration of team performance.

Accelerated Insight Program

Where else can you move your employees further along the relationship and team-building continuum with only a four-hour investment? Create a high-performance team as your group members learn about their colleagues, accelerate networking ability and grow professional relationships. The results: increased commitment to your organization and greater productivity. We can deliver these programs at a conference center, resort, park or at your site.

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What are they saying about their course?

"I learned that I do not always have to 'lead the pack.' I also learned that it's ok to ask for patience from a group without penalty or prejudice imposed."

- Gary, age 55 (Outward Bound Atlanta Advisory Board course, 2008)

"I have learned what students experience [on course], that I can do what I put my mind to, that risk taking has a place in my life and that I love being outside!"

-Kim, age 50 (Outward Bound Atlanta Advisory Board course, 2008)

Educator Course

Overview

Across the nation, educators and administrators are recognizing that traditional education does not entirely meet all the needs of today's students. Traditional high school curricula often lack challenge and relevance to life experience and career goals. Educators have begun to look elsewhere for relevant, engaging approaches to teaching and learning. Outward Bound offers an effective combination of experiential education and educational methodology currently used in classrooms thorughout the country.

Methods

Teachers, administrators, counselors, coaches and youth workers come together to wrestle with difficult questions facing educators today. Through on-site initiatives, ropse courses and workshops, they discover how experiential education can invgiorate classroom learning. Participants gain a deepened educational practice, an enhanced set of skills for the classroom and an ability to better support and inspire their students' academic aspirations. The course consists of:

• Assessment session
• Ropes course
• Two follow-through sessions

Objectives & Outcomes

Personal Development

When faced with challenges, participants discover and develop their potential to care for themselves, others and the world around them.

Inspiration to Educate

Educators reignite their passion for teaching by collaborating with peers, thinking in new ways and problem solving.

Professional Development

Using Outward Bound's methodology for teaching styles and student learning, educators develop strategies to integrate this new knowledge into their own practice. This methodology is rooted in experiential education, student-led learning and a "community" in a classroom.

Support for Students

Through teamwork, skill development and overcoming challenges, participants foster compassion for what it means to be in a student role and reevaluate how they approach students' needs. They also learn how to support students who are attending Outward Bound courses and how to help them transfer the course experience to their daily lives.

Educators Initiative

Overview

This year-long program is designed to help educators develop specific classroom practices based on the philosophies of experiential education. Experiential education, rather than focusing on the transmission of knowledge, encourages individuals to reflect on their experiences with a view to expresing problems in their lives and in the wider world.

Methodology

The methodology is simply described as a cycle of action and reflection, in which individuals act upon their world, then critically reflect on the new learning, ready to reform future actions.

The role of the educator in experiential learning is that of facilitator, offering students appropriate, challenging experiences and a process of reflection in which all participants draw lessons. Eventually, students should be able to facilitate their own learning and growth in order to make positive change in their world.

The program design follows recognized best practices for teacher professional development, "helping teachers not only learn new skills but also develop new insights into pedgogy and their own practice, and explore new or advanced understanding of content and resources" (Troen & Boles, 2003, p. 53).

The program is based on inquiry by the teachers; instead of outside experts providing instruction by "telling," teachers in this program do the talking, thinking and learning. Through "criticaland thoughtful conversations, teachers develop and refine ways to study teaching and learning" (Feiman-Nemser, 2001, p. 1042).

Components include:

• Pre-wilderness course preparation
• Training meetings with teacher self-assessment and goal setting
• Eight-day wilderness course with curriculum developed specifically for educators
• Ongoing mentoring and coaching calls, crew meetings, portfolio reflections
• Monthly readings to support ongoing skill-building and confidence
• Two retreats

Goals

Goals of the program include:

• Providing resources and training for teachers to gain a deeper understanding of experiential education methodology
• Immersing teachers in transformational experiences that positively affect teaching practices
• Increasing teachers' skill-based knowledge of experiential education pedagogy in order to affect student learning and increase teacher satisfaction and retention