This week's assignment is to develop a lesson plan using wiki as a means to construct knowledge. I have never done a formal lesson plan, so I am out of my comfort zone. I used an example in the book of a FAQ wiki for new online students. I remember how I felt when I started this adventure. Not only was a new student after years of being in school, but I was also going to do the entire thing online...Yikes! I think this would be a great ice breaker for students in their intro class and may even a launch for a social networking site like Face Book to continue those relationships beyond the classroom and create a cohort effect for support and networking. This type of assignment capitalizes on the social constructivist theory (West and West, 2012). Thanks for reviewing my idea and I appreciate your gentle critique;)
Title of the lesson:
Wiki: Frequently Asked Questions of New Distance Learners
Target audience:
Students in an any introductory online course
Learning objectives:
Students will learn to work collaboratively with the web 2.0
tool, wiki for knowledge construction based on Bloom’s Taxonomy (West and West,
2012) by generating a data base of questions and answers related to the
challenges of new online students to be used for future students. This process of developing questions and
answers will have additional benefits of validating the current students’
personal concerns as a new distance learner and create a supportive learning
community, encouraging social learning and scaffolding of knowledge according
to social constructivism theory (ibid, 2012).
Preparation:
Create class
wiki page with stub pages for each group
Ask students to fill out a
pre-assignment survey to determine comfort and previous experience with
technology
Create groups based on survey
responses
Support Materials:
Required Reading:
Assignment Procedure:
For this assignment, you will explore the benefits of
collaborative work using a web 2.0 tool called wiki. I
have created our class wiki page and each group has a designated page. I will email a link with an invitation to join the class wiki. fro there you will be able to create your account. Based on your pre-assignment surveys, I
placed you in small groups of 4 with diverse comfort and experience levels. I encourage you to help your classmates.
This is a Frequently asked Questions Wiki and the topic is “questions
and concerns of new online learners.” Each
group is required to generate a minimum of 5 questions and 5 answers per group
member. Feel free to be creative and
include interactive elements to reinforce your ideas. Even though this may look like a straightforward
list type of assignment, I challenge you to look for engaging ways to entice
your reader. Be sure to cite your
references and fact check your answers to the questions you develop! You are
also required to post feedback to the other group pages for a peer review. Remember the netiquette rules and be sure to
offer constructive perspectives. Include
references where appropriate. Finally,
you will have a chance to assess your group members participation in a group
assessment survey at the conclusion of the assignment.
Due Dates:
October 1, 2012 – Wiki complete
October 8, 2012 – Feedback complete
October 15, 2012 – Group assessment survey complete
Evaluation:
20 points possible, 5
points for each category below:
Creativity: Color, visuals,
and creative design elements are included to create an appealing site without
cluttering or distracting the reader.
Content: Content is relevant, articulated in a clear and
concise manner, and supported with current (last 5 years) and credible
references. Care is taken not to quote
directly, but instead paraphrased and includes active links when possible. Grammar counts!
Collaboration: All
students contribute to the group effort using their personal strengths to
advance the collaborative product. This
is a subjective area, so a group assessment survey will be taken into
consideration.
Peer Review: Comments
are substantive and supportive of the task at hand. Postings are positive and respectful while
offering clarification and new perspectives.
You hit on a key issue when you required “current (last 5 years) and credible references. While looking for supporting documentation for this class it is amazing how many of the sources are older than five years. Age is not an issue for many subjects but technology and it’s integration is certainly one of them . I was reading a journal article on technology that seemed to be out of touch with reality until I realized that it was written in 1999. Think about what you were doing with a computer in 1999. I was just barely on the internet and still did not have a work email address. As technology continues to change and evolve, sources will have to remain current in order to remain relevant.
ReplyDeleteThanks, I ran into this issue in a previous class. Its not an easy requirement, but I think it is appropriate when working with technology or a focus on current issues like characteristics of adult online students, which is evolving every year that online education and technology advances. In my own research for our wiki project, I am staying within the 5 year rule for supporting evidence and research, but it is very difficult, so some leeway is probably necessary as long as the article is still relevant. If the parameters are included in the assignment, it will force the student to think about what references he or she includes and gets them in the habit of looking at things like that to decide credibility. I appreciate that Google Scholar will let me filter search results by a particular year to most current. I typically pick from year 2008, but there is a custom setting as well. Amazing how an article from the late 90's as you mention is already outdated. I guess that means there is a lot of opportunity for adult educators to publish!
ReplyDeleteThis is a great example of a very clear lesson plan. I appreciate the guidance you give on specifics of the evaluation, but I think you could go into more in depth on it.
ReplyDeleteI participated in a wiki project where the instructor actually showed written examples of comments for the peer review. I also find that is the hardest part for me to do, personally. The instructor showed a comment and how many points it would get. Then another and another in descending point order. It was helpful to me to read "what not to do," since it was my first project and it eliminated posts like "great job." Since this is your student's first wiki project here, I think the more specifics you give them, the better! It was also my first adult ed class so I was nervous about the whole project. Building confidence in areas like this will encourage the adult learner, who may have not had good educational experiences in the past.
West and West (2009) state about practical and goal oriented adults, "prefer learning experiences that are achievement oriented and that can be broken down into specific tasks and useful outcomes." (p.33)
I am a one of those people, so I also appreciated your learning objective as well!!
West, J. and West, M. (2009). Using Wikis for Online Collaboration: The Power of the Read-Write Web. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Hi Katie,
ReplyDeleteThis was my first stab at a lesson plan, so I appreciate the feedback. I can see your point concerning the peer evaluations and I love the example you shared. I will keep that in mind for next time!
Hi Vianne,
ReplyDeleteThere are many admirable qualities in your lesson plan. It is clear, comprehensive, progresses logically, and encourages student participation and success. I am generally not enamored of lots of embedded graphics and videos, but your plan is so cleanly formatted that the graphics and interactive elements enhance rather than detract from the readability, even for a content-focused learner like me.
Your plan also made me reflect on the hybrid nature of these plans, in the sense that they seem to speak to both instructor and students. The learning objectives section, in particular, I think would mainly interest the instructor, whereas the students require the information from the support materials section on. I suppose that in practice an instructor would present only the appropriate sections to the class.
I strongly agree with your choice of project – FAQs – for beginning online students. I personally find FAQs very useful, and I use them a lot in my job when advising Sailors about things like tuition assistance procedures and VA benefits. Your assignment procedure is framed and written in language that will encourage students to overcome their uncertainties as beginners in web-based learning, and creation of the FAQ will immediately involve students from any generation in “learning problems that are practical and relevant to the real world over abstract learning exercises” (West & West, 2009, p. 26).
Also, getting beginning students into wiki use can help even those who are not super computer-savvy to quickly gain an empowering sense of mastery since wikis allow relative novices to create web pages without programming or HTML skills. Higdon (2005) points out that this is one of the benefits of wiki use in education, in addition to its collaborative nature, since, “at its core, a wiki is a Web site that is fully editable from a Web browser” (para. 4).
KSU Cuz
References
Higdon, J. (2005, November 15). Teaching, learning, and other uses for wikis in academia. Campus Technology. Retrieved from http://campustechnology.com/articles/2005/11/teaching-learning-and-other-uses-for-wikis-in-academia.aspx?sc_lang=en
West, J. A., & West, M. L. (2009). Using wikis for online collaboration: The power of the read-write Web. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Hi Cuz,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the flattering review! I do think the lesson plan can be directed at both the instructor and the student. I looked at it as a dynamic process of developing my thoughts into an action plan. Writing out my learning objectives helped me articulate and fine tune my intent with the assignment. Then, the assignment procedure is a kind of "walk-through" to see if the application is reasonable, helped me identify supporting materials, and gave me an opportunity to convey my thoughts to the students. In my mind, the lesson plan encompasses the entire assignment, including roles of both instructor and student. So, like you mentioned, parts can be extracted and used for the appropriate audience. Since I don't have any experience in this area, I am not sure my thinking is "right," but it made sense to me:)
Concerning my project, this is something I have thought about for some time. I started the adult education program last summer and it has been a wild ride in some ways. I have learned so much academically, but there is a whole other area of learning that I am trying to pay attention to and that is my experience of distance learning. In many ways, this experience has far exceeded by expectations. However, what can we do better? How can we help students become better students in this environment? Can we prepare them differently? Is there a level of competencies that they need to be successful? Many adult programs on campus offer workshops or non-credit course to teach or review skills, such as math or writing in preparation for the classroom. Do we need to add technology to that review? Do we need a workshop for incoming distance learners? Working through this class causes me to ponder the dilemma of technology competencies not only among instructors, but also students. As education progresses and advances, will there be more expectations that students have some kind of minimum technology ability? Maybe students could create their own answers in a social networking format?
Sorry, this probably wasn't what you asked for on a Sunday morning. Welcome to my musings:)
Not to worry, Vianne. That's what blogs are for, especially in their role as online journals - to stimulate musings. I've seen many similar questions about tech literacy raised by adult educators in our required and optional readings.
DeleteKSU Cuz
Hi Vianne, great job creating the lesson plan. I could see utilization of this with some of the participants in my professional development programs. Because I am pretty late to the table so to speak, my peers have really provided outstanding feedback. I just found this today, but West & West (2009) talk about how there needs to be a balance on accessing, from both the group's perspective as well as an individual as a whole (pg 44). This is important, because even though wiki's provide a very detailed outline of who contributed what, it is always nice to know what is going on behind the scenes. I am part of two different wiki's currently, this one and Dr. Persyn's and I can honestly say that they are totally different experiences in the fact that one most of the communication is taking place on the wiki and via email and the other has had wimba sessions and we are actually meeting face to face tomorrow. Even though both groups are moving forward, we have completely different ways of getting there and that isn't something that can be seen through the wiki log.
ReplyDelete