Wikis for Collaborative Learning, Knowledge Construction, Critical Thinking, and Contextual Application

Hi again,

During our class we have had a discussion on whether Wikis are actually collaborative or not.  My take is they are a collaborative tool that can be used in collaboration with other tools, i.e. discussion boards, texting, email, etc.  The tool itself though allows for all members to share their thoughts on the project and inject as much or as little as they see fit.  As I shared in the pros and cons, each person gets out of the project what they put into it.  Below is what I believe could be a good use of a Wiki in a classroom setting.

Several months ago, in a previous class, I developed a class for Government Administration and Law.  I had not originally thought about putting a Wiki into the course design.   But, after reading King and Cox (2011) this week, I think a Wiki would be a great collaborative tool for students to use in preparing for the final debate project already included.   The Wiki could add to the application of Bloom’s Interpersonal learning domain (p. 53).  Not only do King and Cox support the use of Wikis but Carroll, Wu, Shih, and Zheng (2016) found that students who used a Wiki-like program called Piazza (Piazza.com) felt the online discussion helped them think about issues more critically.  Piazza is an “online learning infrastructure intended to enable collaborative development of high-quality question-answer pairs through a sophisticated user interface, functionally similar to that of Wikipedia…(p. 139)”  Carroll et al. reported that students felt the collaboration on Piazza allowed face-to-face discussions to be more interactive and fast-paced.  Additionally, students felt more motivated to find additional sources to strengthen their arguments (p. 145-6).  Students felt they garnered a more complete picture of the problem by hearing not only the author’s views but the many differing views of their classmates (p. 146).   These are precisely the type of outcomes I would be looking for in the debates of the class I previously put together.  So, below is a revamped version of how I would like the 8-week training plan to look.

Government Administration and Law (Proposed New Course)

This course explores how the legislative branch of government fits into the overall law-making process.  Learners will look back briefly at the history of legislation starting in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.  Learners will learn the steps by which a bill passes back and forth in the legislative branch before making its way to the executive branch to be signed into law.  This course will not only cover the mechanics of lawmaking but explore some of the nuances and political influences that determine whether a bill even makes it out of committee, to begin with.  By the end of the course, the learner will know how the political parties influence bills that are made into law. Learners will get the chance to try to pass "their" bill through to law in the classroom. This course bridges from the factual lawmaking to the metacognitive knowledge of how politics affects the law and the learner.  This course would assist in preparing the learner for later political courses and/or a political internship.

Target Audience –  The learners would vary anywhere from newly graduated high school seniors to mature adults wanting to learn more.  I believe this course could attract learners from very diverse backgrounds, from students wanting to go into government law, to civil rights activists, to immigrants wanting to learn more about the country.  This will make the introduction phase of the course especially important to see what background each person brings to the class

Learning Objectives and Outcomes - By the end of the course, learners will be able to:

1.       Explain the scope of the legislative branch's role in making a bill into law.

2.       Compare and contrast the fundamental platforms of political parties

3.       Critique how political views of legislators affect the passage of laws (never passed, passed with major revision or passed relatively unchanged).

4.       Construct a mock bill in committee, pass it through the legislature, and bring it to the President for signature, identifying possible roadblocks and potential "fixes" to get the bill passed.

5.       Reflect on how a recent law affected the learner and how he/she might have worked on the bill.

Why Use the Wiki – The Wiki would be used during Learning Objective 4.  The project originally called for forming teams with classroom collaboration and ending in a debate.  The original course was designed as a full semester course.  By shortening it to 8 weeks, students will have to collaborate outside of class and a Wiki space makes sense for this particular project.

Learning Objective 4 - Construct a mock bill in committee, pass it through the legislature, and bring it to the President for signature, identifying possible roadblocks and potential "fixes" to get the bill passed.  This objective is critical to the course and will use Research/Wiki/Role Play/Critical Debate to reach it.  Work will start in week three.  Twenty minutes at the end of each class will be dedicated to face-to-face collaboration and strategic question and answer sessions about the project. 

Role Play/Modified Critical Debate -  Two current semi-controversial topics will be chosen.  Students will be broken into four committees to research and write a bill to bring to the Congressional floor for debate.  Once the topics are chosen, students will choose which topic most interest them and choose the conservative view or liberal view.  The students will then be assigned to join the committee of their opposing view.  Each "committee" will author a bill and determine their strategy for getting it passed.  (The actual verbiage of the bill is not the important part to the outcome, it is the critical thinking that goes into how the students research their arguments and plan to bring it before the floor and get it passed).  Both "committees" will bring their bill to the floor and present it to the floor in a debate.  At the end of both presentations, the "floor" (whole class) will vote. 

Timeline - Groups will be chosen at week three.  Each group will be assigned a Wiki page with their topic and their viewpoint.  After small groups are chosen, the last twenty minutes of each class will be used for in-class bill research/composition/debate preparation.  This will be a time for students to face-to-face collaborate and ask any questions needed of the teacher.  Students will use the Wikis to complete their research arguments and write their bill/debate strategy.  The instructor will give feedback on research arguments after week five of class.  Students will have between week five and seven to finish writing their bill to present.  The debates will be presented in class seven.  In the last class, week eight, the bills will be discussed and the process will be reflected upon to hypothesize what would happen to the bills in real life after the votes (killed, returned to committee for rework, forwarded to the Senate and on to the President, etc.)

This activity will allow students to take all the information they have learned about committees, bills, legislative procedures, and debate, and put it in to practice.  Students will be able to demonstrate what they have learned throughout the class in an intellectual/dialytic and physical sense.

How the Wiki will be used – The Wiki will be used as the collaborative tool the group members use to write the research on their topic.  The wiki will be the written collaboration of information for the project.  Each group will have a work page and final project page.  The final project will be where they will write their “bill” to be presented for debate.  Although students will be assigned to one view on the topic, they can create links to other pages that will point/counterpoint what they think the other team’s views may be. 

Not every student has exceptional oration/debate skills, the Wiki will help the instructor assess how well the group could work as a team, how well students learned to think critically about a view that was not originally their own (Brookfield, 2012b), and how well they applied the knowledge they gained in the course to the problem at hand.  The debate, being the end product of the collaboration, will be a tangible mirror to the work that was put into the collaboration on the project.

References

Brookfield, S (2012b) Teaching for critical thinking: Tools and techniques to help students question their assumptions.  San Francisco, CA:  Jossey-Bass

Carroll, J. M., Wu, Y., Shih, P. C., & Zheng, S. (2016). Re-appropriating a question/answer system to support dialectical constructivist learning activity. Educational Technology Research and Development, 64(1), 137-156. Retrieved from doi:http://dx.doi.org.er.lib.k-state.edu/10.1007/s11423-015-9405-6

King, K. P. & Cox, T. D. (2011).  The professor’s guide to taming technology: Leveraging digital media, Web 2.0 and more for learning. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing, Inc.

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