Reflection on Wiki Activities

Image courtesy of CDA (2012)

As part of the engagement component of the coursework for EDED20491 this week, I participated in an activity on the campus wiki. This built on last week's introductory activity in which I added my blog and wiki hyperlinks to the Blog and Wiki URL's wiki.

This week's activity involved the EDED20491 cohort being divided into four groups and making contributions via an online wiki about the topic “mobile phones – should they be used in the classroom?”. The wiki activity required learners to consider and respond to this topic using de Bono’s ‘Six Thinking Hats’ (Kurwongbah State School, undated).

This reflection examines a range of learning theories to determine which are most relevant to the design of this activity. I also reflect on the scaffolding techniques used, the value of collaborative learning and the lessons I will take away for designing my own learning activities.

Learning Theory

The instructional design of this activity included only limited ongoing involvement by the teacher. Given the lack of reinforcement of target behaviour/s and the open-ended structure which lacked a pre-defined end result, I do not consider that this forum was reflective of behaviourist theory (Fasso, 2012). Behaviourist approaches typically target low-level content and routine skill development (Fasso, 2012).

Cognitivism seeks to understand learning in terms of inner mental activities (Learning Theories Knowledgebase, 2012). Although I think cognitivism goes a way towards explaining my mental processes in transferring the information presented in this activity from the sensory register to working memory, I don’t believe the design of the activity is cognitivist in nature. A key tenet of cognitivist theory, ‘meaningful effects’, refers to the linkage of information to prior schema, making it meaningful and therefore easier to remember (Mergel, 1998). Cognitivist learning design is heavily focussed on helping learners connect new material to existing information in order to help them memorise the content (e.g. concept maps) (Lein, n.d.).

In contrast, the purpose of the wiki activity was to develop higher order thinking skills. Constructivist theory is underpinned by the notion that learners construct meaning based on their perceptions of social encounters and experiences. The design of the wiki activity was constructivistic in nature in that it aimed to stimulate social interaction between members of a learning community and encourage learners to actively share their personal interpretations of the topic. The experience of sharing (or ‘negotiating’) these interpretations,  is what resulted in the construction of knowledge.

The wiki activity presented a realistic setting and in this case, qualitative assessment was integrated through this reflection task (Merrill, 1991, in Smorgansbord, 1997). The direction of the wiki was quite flexible and able to be influenced by the participants, another characteristic of constructivist learning design. This was evidenced by the different material presented across the four groups for the wiki.

The role of the teacher in this activity was to really only to provide initial scaffolding. This is typical of constructivist learning design, which is generally more facilitative than prescriptive (Mergel, 1998). 

Scaffolding

Although the activity was instigated and set up by the ‘teacher’, the content was contributed by the group of learners. The teacher scaffolded the activity by providing:

• an introduction to learning theories;
• a framework for collaboration (i.e. online wiki);
• webconferencing tutorials;
• a description of what should be learned through the activity;
• groups of learners;
• a suitable tool (i.e. de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats and a table template to structure responses by learners);
• a series of leading questions and required ways of thinking to guide the direction of reflection about the activity; and
• selection of discussion forums to enable personal and interactive reflection (e.g. blogs).

The scaffolding provided the context for the wiki activity and supported the particular way learners thought about the topic. For example, by providing links to information about de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats, the teacher ‘set the scene’ for the wiki by making learners aware that they should use a range of thinking modes to come up with a range of perspectives. By introducing wikis and providing instructions on how to edit the table displayed in the wiki, the scaffolding facilitated the collection of the perspectives offered by the learners.

Constructivism and Collaboration

As a mode of learning, the online wiki supported thinking and participation by:

• allowing learners to ‘own’ their responses to the topic;
• encouraging collaboration between learners; and
• encouraging learners to provide a range of perspectives through use of the six hats.

The responses added to the wiki were relevant, reasonable and varied. The wiki activity allowed me to reflect on the topic individually as well more fully understand the complexity of the issue through acknowledging a number of other responses added by my colleagues.

As I was participating, I was aware of the fact that de Bono’s thinking hats were encouraging me to consider wider perspectives than I would typically, and the collaborative nature of the wiki took this one step further by listing even more perspectives.

The participation provided by the wiki makes the activity ‘fun’, as a learner, it reminded me that we were talking about a real issue with real implications. I found it interesting to read about what my classmates were thinking and exciting to contribute to a group discussion.

The activity challenged me and sustained my interest, allowing me to synthesise responses from the diverse ideas for each ‘thinking hat’. Some of the ideas added by my colleagues then prompted me to think and read further by raising new related issues.

I felt like I was able to learn about my peers and gauge some sense of their personality through reading their responses. By either aligning myself with their position or questioning their ideas, I felt like I was constructing meaning about the content but also about myself and my colleagues. I also found that the collaborative wiki helped me to articulate and solidify my own views.

There can be no ‘correct’ response to the topic, and responses will be subjective and heavily influenced by one’s particular context and definition of the question. The activity encouraged problem-based higher order thinking, a move towards the most complex categories of Bloom’s Taxonomy of the cognitive domain (Big Dog, Little Dog and Knowledge Jump, 1999).

The Productive Pedagogies project, stemming from the University of Queensland’s Queensland School Reform Longitudinal Study, identified productive pedagogies from observations of classroom teaching (Department of Education and Training, 2002). I think this learning activity reflected strategies within the productive pedagogies, including (Fasso, 2012):

• the facilitation of deep knowledge through higher order thinking;
• the facilitation of collaborative learning in which conversations are important;
• learning that is owned, controlled and managed by students; and
• learning that is socially supportive and engaging.

Wikis - Benefits, Issues and Drawbacks


Although participating in wikis like these has a number of benefits, there are also some drawbacks as identified in the graphic organiser below.

Plus	Minus	Interesting
- benefits a range of learners (active, reflective, sensing and intuitive, visual and verbal, sequential and global) (Soloman and Felder, undated) - facilitates collaboration between a group of geographically distant learners - equips learners to effectively deal with real life scenarios - in the real world, individuals are continually confronted with new situations which require them to acquaint themselves with other people’s realities in order to negotiate solutions - develops the ability to appreciateand understand others’ views	- although this wiki was well-suited to higher order thinking and collaboration, it was less suited to the development of lower order thinking and basic recall. - in some learning activities, it is important to set achievable goals and measures progress towards these goals quantitatively, which is not one of the strengths of constructivism	- the design of wikis has implications for the type of learning they promote - as pointed out by Mergel (1998), there are situations when divergent thinking is not desirable or appropriate

I intend to use my understanding of the learning theories and my observations/conclusions about this wiki activity to inform my design of learning experiences to maximise learning gains.

References

Big Dog, Little Dog and Knowledge Jump (1999). Retrieved from http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/hrd/bloom.html#cognitive

CDA (2012). Edward De Bono's Six Thinking Hats Revisited. Retrieved from http://cdainspired.com.au/edward-de-bonos-six-thinking-hats-revisited/

Department of Education and Training (2002). Productive Pedagogies. Retrieved from http://education.qld.gov.au/public_media/reports/curriculum-framework/productive-pedagogies/html/about.html

Fasso, W. (2012). EDED20491: ICTs for Learning Design (Term 1, 2012). Retrieved from CQUniversity e-courses, EDED20491 ICTs for Learning Design, http://moodle.cqu.edu.au/course/view.php?id=19580

Kurwongbah State School (n.d.). Edward de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats. Retrieved from http://www.kurwongbss.eq.edu.au/thinking/Hats/hats.htm

Learning Theories Knowledgebase (2012). Cognitivism at Learning-Theories.com. Retrieved from http://www.learning-theories.com/cognitivism.html

Lein, K. (n.d.). Cognitivist Approach. Retrieved from http://elearningpedagogy.com/cognitivist.html

Mergel, B. (1998). Instructional Deisgn & Learning Theory. Retrieved from http://www.usask.ca/education/coursework/802papers/mergel/brenda.htm

Merrill, M. D. (1991, May). Constructivism and instructional design. Educational Technology, 45-53.

Soloman, B. A. and Felder, R. M. (n.d.). Index of Learning Styles Questionnaire. Retrieved from http://www.engr.ncsu.edu/learningstyles/ilsweb.html

Smorgansbord, A. (n.d.). Constructivism and instructional design. Retrieved from http://hagar.up.ac.za/catts/learner/smorgan/cons.html