Lesson Plan using a Wiki

Lesson Plan for EDACE 765

Title of Lesson: Collaborative research writing project.

This project will be used instead of the general final exam for the course. The final exam usually consists of students writing an essay on a topic assigned by the instructor. According to Wexler (2015), “students can benefit from more engaged applications of knowledge that get at higher levels of thinking” (no page). This project will engage the students in a writing project that includes collaboration. Students will work in groups of 3 and research an assigned topic. They will follow the stages of the writing process and produce a research essay using a wiki that will be available for future ENC 1102 students to use. The purpose of this project is to provide additional opportunities for students to collaborate, demonstrate knowledge of the steps of the writing process, and produce a well-researched essay on a topic of local concern to the community through the use of a wiki. The writing project length will be 750 words and require 4 outside sources.  In King & Cox (2011), the authors discuss the constructivist paradigm where “knowledge is seen as constructed: the students engage in interaction with the learning materials, and by doing so, they can integrate new ideas and try to make meaning of the new information” (p. 125). This paradigm also provides “cooperative, collaborative, and conversational opportunities for the students” (p. 125). In order to better prepare students to engage in the new methods of learning, collaboration, research skills and critical thinking are necessary skills for 21^st century learning. This project will invite students to participate in learning activities that will activate all of these skills. 

Target Audience: ENC 1102 students-2^nd semester required freshman composition class at a state college. Class members range in age from 16(dual enrolled students) through 60+.  

 Rhetoric of the argumentative essay and the documented paper. Compositions based on readings of fiction, nonfiction, drama, poetry, film, video, and other media. This course in a Gordon Rule writing course in which students will produce extensive college-level writing and which requires completion with a minimum grade of "CRhetoric of the argumentative essay and the documented paper. Compositions based on readings of fiction, nonfiction, drama, poetry, film, video, and other media. This course in a Gordon Rule writing course in which students will produce extensive college-level writing and which requires completion with a minimum grade of "CRhetoric of the argumentative essay and the documented paper. Compositions based on readings of fiction, nonfiction, drama, poetry, film, video, and other media. This course in a Gordon Rule writing course in which students will produce extensive college-level writing and which requires completion with a minimum grade of "C."Rhetoric of the argumentative essay and the documented paper. Compositions based on readings of fiction, nonfiction, drama, poetry, film, video, and other media. This course in a Gordon Rule writing course in which students will produce extensive college-level writing and which requires completion with a minimum grade of "C."Rhetoric of the argumentative essay and the documented paper. Compositions based on readings of fiction, nonfiction, drama, poetry, film, video, and other media. This course in a Gordon Rule writing course in which students will produce extensive college-level writing and which requires completion with a minimum grade of "C."Rhetoric of the argumentative essay and the documented paper. Compositions based on readings of fiction, nonfiction, drama, poetry, film, video, and other media. This course in a Gordon Rule writing course in which students will produce extensive college-level writing and which requires completion with a minimum grade of "C."Rhetoric of the argumentative essay and the documented paper. Compositions based on readings of fiction, nonfiction, drama, poetry, film, video, and other media. This course in a Gordon Rule writing course in which students will produce extensive college-level writing and which requires completion with a minimum grade of "C."Rhetoric of the argumentative essay and the documented paper. Compositions based on readings of fiction, nonfiction, drama, poetry, film, video, and other media. This course in a Gordon Rule writing course in which students will produce extensive college-level writing and which requires completion with a minimum grade of "C."Rhetoric of the argumentative essay and the documented paper. Compositions based on readings of fiction, nonfiction, drama, poetry, film, video, and other media. This course in a Gordon Rule writing course in which students will produce extensive college-level writing and which requires completion with a minimum grade of "C."Rhetoric of the argumentative essay and the documented paper. Compositions based on readings of fiction, nonfiction, drama, poetry, film, video, and other media. This course in a Gordon Rule writing course in which students will produce extensive college-level writing and which requires completion with a minimum grade of "C."Rhetoric of the argumentative essay and the documented paper. Compositions based on readings of fiction, nonfiction, drama, poetry, film, video, and other media. This course in a Gordon Rule writing course in which students will produce extensive college-level writing and which requires completion with a minimum grade of "C."Rhetoric of the argumentative essay and the documented paper. Compositions based on readings of fiction, nonfiction, drama, poetry, film, video, and other media. This course in a Gordon Rule writing course in which students will produce extensive college-level writing and which requires completion with a minimum grade of "C."Rhetoric of the argumentative essay and the documented paper. Compositions based on readings of fiction, nonfiction, drama, poetry, film, video, and other media. This course in a Gordon Rule writing course in which students will produce extensive college-level writing and which requires completion with a minimum grade of "C."Rhetoric of the argumentative essay and the documented paper. Compositions based on readings of fiction, nonfiction, drama, poetry, film, video, and other media. This course in a Gordon Rule writing course in which students will produce extensive college-level writing and which requires completion with a minimum grade of "C."Rhetoric of the argumentative essay and the documented paper. Compositions based on readings of fiction, nonfiction, drama, poetry, film, video, and other media. This course in a Gordon Rule writing course in which students will produce extensive college-level writing and which requires completion with a minimum grade of "C."Rhetoric of the argumentative essay and the documented paper. Compositions based on readings of fiction, nonfiction, drama, poetry, film, video, and other media. This course in a Gordon Rule writing course in which students will produce extensive college-level writing and which requires completion with a minimum grade of "C."Rhetoric of the argumentative essay and the documented paper. Compositions based on readings of fiction, nonfiction, drama, poetry, film, video, and other media. This course in a Gordon Rule writing course in which students will produce extensive college-level writing and which requires completion with a minimum grade of "C."

Learning objectives: According to Krathwohl (2002), “the taxonomy of educational objectives is a framework for classifying statements of what we expect or intend students to learn as a result of instruction” (p. 212). These are my objectives with a notation of how they fall on Bloom’s Taxonomy for the research writing project:

 1. Students will collaborate with a team to create a wiki that will present a research writing project to the class. (Create/procedural)

2. Students will evaluate the pros and cons of a local issue using library and field research. (Evaluate/conceptual)

3. Students will demonstrate knowledge of surface features such as syntax, grammar, punctuation and spelling in their writing. (Factual/understand)

4. Students will apply a variety of electronic technologies to drafting, revising, and editing their writing. (Apply/procedural)

5. Students will reflect on their own researching, writing and learning processes. (Evaluating/Procedural)

Materials needed: Course textbook and wiki link provided inside of the LMS

 

Instructional procedure/Class outline and methods: This will be an 8-week research writing project that will begin after the midterm exam in a 16 week face-to-face class that meets 1 night per week for 2 hours and 45 minutes. This research writing project will be used as the final exam for the course.

Suggested learning activities: 8 week plan:

Week	Book/Readings	Assignment	Discussion/LMS
Week 1	Read/view Project ppt. assignment		Introduction to other group members
Week 2	Pre-writing methods/ wiki demonstration video and sample wikis	Decide on project topic from list provided; add project topic to group wiki	Team meeting to determine roles
Week 3	Chapter/ppt/video on wiki use	Outline for writing project added to wiki	1 minute paper to evaluate roles/progress
Week 4	Read chapter on drafting/ researching, library video	Mid-project evaluation via survey monkey add/edit wiki draft	Team meeting to change roles, if necessary
Week 5	Read chapter on revision	Draft of project due/ should be completed on wiki	1 minute paper to evaluate roles and progress
Week 6	Team work  week	Additions/revisions to draft on wiki
Week 7	Peer review/edit	Edit wiki draft based on peer review responses	1 minute paper on peer review process
Week 8	Final project presentation		Reflection paper based on wiki research project

Evaluation/rubric: This project is worth 10% of the final grade. The total number of possible points will be 100.

Attributes	Exemplary (25-21)	Above Average (20-16)	Average (15-11)	Below Average (10 below)
Collaboration/wiki production	Consistent and frequent engagement; complete goals and agreed roles	Occasional engagement; some members had to step in and complete goals	Made some additions and revisions; some members did not complete tasks	Some additions made, but few revisions made; group members did not work to complete goals.
Content/Development/Thesis	Explicit, clear thesis; strong support provided with details and examples topic sentences connected to thesis	Clear thesis with strong support and details. Topic sentences connected to thesis.	Thesis evident, however, support and details may be vague and lack direct connection to thesis. Examples are not developed	Thesis is not clear. Details and support cannot be connected to thesis.
Evidence and Support	Research is evident and relevant and accurate; 4 or more sources cited	Research is evident and relevant and mostly accurate; 3 or more sources cited	Few examples used to support ideas; Less than 2 sources cited	No supporting details or examples provided; No sources cited
Grammar, Mechanics, MLA	Writing is nearly free of all grammatical errors and follows MLA format	Writing is basically free of grammatical errors and follows MLA format	Writing may contain a few major grammatical and usage errors. MLA format has some errors	Writing contains many grammatical and usage errors. No MLA format evident.

References:

King, K.P. and Cox, T.D. (2011). The professor’s guide to taming technology. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing, Inc.

Krathwohl, D. R. (2002). A revision of bloom’s taxonomy: an overview. Theory into practice.  41,  4,  212-218.

Wexler, E. (2015). In online courses, students learn more by doing than by watching. The Chronicle of Higher Education. September 16, 2015.

The following YouTube videos will be posted for instructional purposes:

This is a video on how to construct a wiki:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0WQUrX-jBw

This is a video on how instructors have used a wiki in the classroom:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRj5ABJ-IPY  

The sample lesson plan from Even Start was helpful for me.

Pros and Cons of Wikis

As an English instructor, I have spent most of my teaching career warning students about the use of Wikipedia for their essays. This is the first time I have really thought about the fact that Wikipedia is “the most well-known open source wiki on the internet” (Lari, 2011, King and Cox, 2011, p. 121). The definition of a wiki as stated by Lari (2011) is a “web site that allows visitors to add, remove, edit and change content” (King and Cox, 2011, p. 121). So now I am forced to look at wikis in another light and objectively look at their pros and cons in regards to adult learning.

 
From a constructivist theorist’s point of view “learning is a social process and learning occurs through interactions” (Lari, 2011, King and Cox, 2011, p. 124). The best feature about wikis is that they are collaborative and can build connections between groups of students.  For adult learners, the social aspect of wikis is a place for communities of practice to develop. Communities of practice are “groups of people who share enthusiasm or interest for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact with each other” (Lari, 2011, King and Cox, 2011, p. 124). The social and collaborative aspects of wikis for adult learners are two pros for incorporating wikis in the classroom as a method for faculty to encourage learners to become more responsible for their own learning.

As for the cons of wikis, there are several. One of the biggest cons of consulting wikis for information is the fact that anyone can edit a wiki page. According to West, J. and West, M. (2009) “anyone with access, permission and a web-browser can contribute to a wiki” (p. 3). That can be a problem if the person doing the editing is not familiar with the content he/she is attempting to edit. Another con to wikis is that “a wiki represents the collective perspective of the group that uses it and therefore it has a collective bias” (Lari, 2011, King and Cox, 2011, p. 123). An instructor would then have to add additional content into the classroom discussion about the bias and possible incorrect information in the wiki that the students would be creating or consulting. Obviously, there are ways to combat both of these concerns in a course wiki; however, those would need to be addressed.

Overall, I am not convinced that wikis are something that could add to the learning experience of adult students. As stated in West, J. and West, M. (2009) “adults must see a reason and purpose for their learning in order to fully engage with the instruction” (p. 26).

References

Lari, P. (2011). The use of wikis for collaboration in higher education. . In K.P. King and T.D. Cox (Eds.), The Professor’s guide to taming technology (pp.121-133). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing, Inc.

West, J. and West, M. (2009). Using wikis for online collaboration. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.