This week I will share with you some of my experiences utilizing wiki in undergraduate level classes.
Background of COM250 class
The COM250 is a core communication course for undergraduate students. The professor holds the belief that the best way to “stay in touch” with the real world of communication technology is to use them for the interaction of collaborative work. However, given the huge class size of 120 students and one hour class period, it is hard to make everyone participate through contributing and discussing their experiences about technology in the class.
Four instructional motives of Wikis in supporting of students collaborative learning
1 To establish a sense of intellectual community among students. I am going to encourage students' collaborative work in searching for information and editing wikis contents. All their editing contributions can be viewed and discussed among peers, which establishes a sense of intellectual community in them.
2 To enhance students’ collaboration skills and capability of knowledge integration and creation. I choose to use Wikis because it allows multiple contributors (student editor groups) to compile information (descriptions and critiques of communication technology they find interesting) and jointly edit or create the content (on the wikis site).
3 To enhance student cognitive performance or foster deep understanding. I am going to post open topics on wikis for students to discuss and make critiques. Then I will ask them to post their final group statements on wikis. In order to reach consensus about the group editing content, students will formulate and solidify their own ideas as well as evaluate and criticize others’ ideas.
4 To overcome time and space limit. Students have more flexibility to conduct cooperative work. I can also extend my physical office hour to virtual contexts. This may increase my interaction with students.
The role of instructors in the instructional contexts of Wikis
My role as an instructor in the class Wikis is that of being a facilitator, a mentor, or a coach. Transferring from information-given to information-initiating style, my main task is to stimulate students’ questions and concerns to certain communication technologies, and to guide them to find out the answer by various information-seeking strategies, as well as making deep cognitive thinking. In our wikis, we are going to post some social or cultural problems from the real world and ask students to present their solutions using their experiences and knowledge about communication technology.
Assessment for students learning
Since Wikis belong to one type of asynchronous discussion, I will adapt some assessment guidelines from asynchronous online instructional context. I will evaluate students by students'
-mastery of subject matter,
-application of ideas and concepts,
-clearly written with sufficient detail and thoroughness,
-considerate of others’ ideas and opinions,
-providing reflective feedback by asking additional questions or providing useful information or suggestions.
2 comments:
cool! In my class, the instructor also asked us to use wiki to genearte a course glossary. I found it helpful especially for the final exam, you don't need to worry about missing any notes or points, because all the class were making that together.
I am thinking of adapting such collaborative learning to the stakeholder relationship management and brand promotion. The brand building process actually is also the collaborating process in which the company and the stakeholders co-create the brand.
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