Flexibility is a key topic in higher education today. With more students studying part-time, they increasingly combine their studies with other activities. In the Peek community, we see a growing trend of asking students to complete excursions at a time of their choosing.
Peek fully supports this approach. In this article, we explain how it works: designing an excursion for both groups and individual participants to complete at a later time.
What exactly is flexibility in education?
Flexibility in education is a prominent agenda item in educational innovation. But what does it actually mean? Flexibility in organizing education refers to innovations that address the specific needs of students, teachers, or even parents. This can range from tailoring education to individual students to adapting to special circumstances such as a pandemic or teacher shortages. ICT tools, like hybrid or virtual classrooms, can be invaluable in these scenarios, enabling part of the class to participate online while others attend in person.
How does Peek contribute to flexibility?
Peek focuses on three key pillars to make excursions more flexible:
- Personalized learning
Peek enables educators to create excursions tailored to the individual needs and interests of students. With customizable tasks and questions, students can learn at their own level and pace during the excursion. - Accessibility anytime
Teachers can set up excursions that students can access at any time, whether during regular class hours or outside them. - Scalability for large groups
Teachers can design excursions for large groups of students while ensuring each student receives individual attention and guidance.
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Challenges of traditional excursions
Traditional excursions often pose challenges for educators. Managing large student groups can make it difficult to maintain oversight and keep everyone engaged. Conveying all the necessary information and assessing the outcomes afterward can also be complex. Additionally, allowing students to participate in an excursion at their own time is usually challenging—especially if important information needs to be communicated during the experience.
Peek: The innovative guide app for flexible excursions
Peek offers a solution to these challenges. How does it work in practice?
The guide app enables educators to prepare excursions through the ‘My Peek’ platform. Teachers can select GPS locations on a map and enrich them with questions, assignments, or information in various formats, such as text, images, audio, and video.
During the excursion, students use the Peek app to navigate to the predefined locations. When they arrive, they automatically receive the corresponding tasks or information. This approach actively engages students in the learning process, which is crucial for making excursions more flexible. While students work on their tasks, educators can monitor the group and provide support as needed.
Practical tips for My Peek users
Using My Peek, educators can take full advantage of its flexibility features to create effective and engaging excursions. Here are some practical tips to get the most out of the platform:
- Personalized multimedia content:
Place videos or audio files at specific locations within an excursion. This allows you—or a stakeholder—to provide explanations remotely, ensuring students receive personal and engaging content at their own convenience. - Flexible submission options:
Students can submit and sync their answers at any time within the timeframe you set, giving them the freedom to work on their tasks when it suits them best. - Time-Sensitive excursions:
Link excursions to specific time slots, making them accessible only during a set period. This ensures the activity aligns with your teaching schedule or specific events. - Detailed insights and results:
Monitor when students complete their excursions and review all collected answers and results in the dashboard. This provides you with a clear overview of student performance and helps track learning outcomes effectively.
With these tools, educators can ensure excursions remain interactive, flexible, and fully tailored to their teaching needs.
Analyzing and evaluating results
After the excursion, all answers and results are stored in an online dashboard with export functionality for further analysis. This gives educators insights into student performance, which they can use for evaluation or to introduce rewards as part of a gamified experience. This ensures educators maintain control over outcomes and can monitor learning objectives.
Flexible excursions: the future of educational innovation
In summary, Peek plays a valuable role in making excursions more flexible and contributes to educational innovation. With this innovative guide app, educators can reshape excursions into interactive and engaging learning experiences for their students, whether working with small groups, individual learners, or large cohorts over multiple days.
Flexible excursions with Peek not only address the challenges of traditional excursions but also mark a step toward the future of educational innovation.
