(247d) Using Class Wikis as Reflective Learning Tools

At the end of a lecture there is a tendency for a student to rapidly move as far away from the classroom and the topics discussed as possible. This apparent instinct to flee and thereby free their mental energies from class work discourages reflection on the lecture subject by the student. This tends to reduce retention and absorption of the concepts presented during the class.

One effective means of encouraging reflection as a mode of learning is portfolio development. They foster active learning and give the student the perspective needed to ensure that they are progressively learning over time. The downside of portfolios, whether paper-borne or electronic, is that they take significant student time to prepare and manage. McGourty notes that ?full portfolios are very labor intensive and are sometimes abandoned due to the work required in assessment, despite the richness of results.? In this project, the reflective element of portfolios was extracted and applied in a collaborative, online setting using an electronic wiki.

A wiki is a web-based document that can be edited by multiple users. For this project, students in a material and energy balance course were assigned the weekly task of maintaining a wiki page on the current textbook chapter by entering what they perceived as the most important items learned during class. This was similar to other active learning activities suggested in the literature, but in this case the student contributions were collaborative and archival. Students were encouraged to be complete and accurate with the promise that their entries would be available during an exam. Other wiki pages the students developed included a set of suggestions in preparing for the first exam for future students enrolled in the course.

Instructor assessment on learning indicated that once students understood the expectations of the reflective wiki entries they more rapidly demonstrated understanding of the key points made during previous lectures. The students in this small course section rapidly formed the sort of positive interdependence relationship that Johnson describes as a result of collaborative learning. Students that the instructor suspected at the start of the course would be unable to complete the course were successful early in the course and were able to demonstrate learning sufficient to pass the course with a ?C' or better. Student assessment of the process concluded that reflection was an important mechanism for learning.