Back to Wikis in the Online Class

Why a Wiki is an Effective Instructional Choice

Because of the collaborative nature of wikis, they are ideally suited for use in a learner-centered online environment.  Collaborative learning is a term that comes up quite often in education research.  So what does collaborative learning mean?  In their paper "What is Collaborative Learning?" Barbara Leigh Smith and Jean T. MacGregor give this description:

“Collaborative learning” is an umbrella term for a variety of educational approaches involving joint intellectual effort by students, or students and teachers together. Usually, students are working in groups of two or more, mutually searching for understanding, solutions, or meanings, or creating a product. Collaborative learning activities vary widely, but most center on students’ exploration or application of the course material, not simply the teacher’s presentation or explication of it. Collaborative learning represents a significant shift away from the typical teachercentered or lecture-centered milieu in college classrooms. In collaborative classrooms, the lecturing/ listening/note-taking process may not disappear entirely, but it lives alongside other processes that are based in students’ discussion and active work with the course material. Teachers who use collaborative learning approaches tend to think of themselves less as expert transmitters of knowledge to students, and more as expert designers of intellectual experiences for students-as coaches or mid-wives of a more emergent learning process.

Within their paper, Smith and MacGregor also make several assumptions about learners and the learning process:

• Learning is an active, constructive process.
• Learning depends on rich contexts.
• Learners are diverse.
• Learning is inherently social.

Accepting these assumptions, we can also see that collaborative learning supports constructivist and connectivist learning theories as well.  Students working together in a wiki are in an environment that will allow them to actively take part in generating and constructing new content together, with an end result that will be a viewable and interactive artifact of their combined diverse knowledge and creativity.  With proper planning for wiki projects, instructors can create an area with a variety of information contexts, whether this involves an overview of a topic from a holistic viewpoint or simply a display of the variety of approaches to one idea from multiple individuals.  Because of the wiki's commenting abilities, students can also share ideas, information, and complete peer critiques which not only enforces their understanding of the information being presented, but can also help to create a social connections between classmates.  Creation of a wiki, however, is not the only possible concept here.  Students can also be made responsible for maintaining the currency of the information contained in a wiki project.  An atmosphere that encourages constant review and refinement of the work allows for more, and new, connections between ideas and information to made, and opens the door for debate and instruction both between students and instructor, and among the students themselves.

In addition, wiki's can help fulfill some higher educational goals.  A few of these are listed here as stated by Smith and MacGregor along with how utilizing a wiki can help meet these goals:

• Involvment - get students more actively involved in learning, with other students, and with faculty.  Studies show that involvment can help retention of students in higher education settings, which is not only good for the students, but also good for the schools.
• Cooperation and Teamwork - students learn how to cope with differences of opinions, ideas, and styles.  Through working with others, students learn how to negotiate roles for later life employment, or simply the skills needed to get along and thrive in a community.
• Civic Responsibility - participation in a larger community, and the responsibility that is inherent in that participation, can be effectively taught through group interaction and involvement in an atmosphere that requires measurable results within a given time schedule.  The skills of debate, active listening, appropriate voice, and compromise can all be learned here.

Work Cited:

Smith, Barbara Leigh and Jean T. MacGregor.  "What is Collaborative Learning?".  Washington Center for Improving the Quality of Undergraduate Education.  Available from:  http://learningcommons.evergreen.edu/pdf/collab.pdf

Back to Wikis in the Online Class

 Create your own educational wiki!Help Privacy Policy RSS