Brief description

The students jointly prepare course topics. Course content is enhanced.

What is the objective?

• Intensive involvement with the course topic
• Interactive exchange
• Presentation of interim and final results of research into topics/ individual works
• Organisation and documentation of workflow, idea generation processes, research steps and materials

Tools

Publish useful links in Stud.IP on the General Information page as well as reading lists for various course topics under Literature. You can rename the General Information page as “Links”. To prestructure the students’ work, post the list of topics in Wiki – with one Wiki page for each topic.

Ablauf

Create groups in the participant area. When you do this, also activate the options “Document folder” and “Self enrolling”; this gives each group a folder in the files area that is only accessible to them and the students can sign in to the groups themselves. Ask the students to form groups of four to six people and select a topic for themselves. The forum can be used to create groups. Then under “Functions / Groups” the students sign up to the groups that you created earlier.

The groups read the literature and explore the links for their topic. Then in Wiki they post a brief summary of the topic and its relevance to the seminar.

Each group reads the reports of the other groups and posts at least one question on each topic on the forum (lecturers determine the number of questions per group).

In the next step, each group writes the Wiki page(s) on their topic. Any response to a forum question is identified. This can take place for example by inserting a comment.

Documentation

The finished pages are finally available to all participants for further use and work, as they can be archived and processed further as PDF or HTML files. At the end of the course, the groups introduce their results in the form of a presentation.

Practical tips

In most cases the normal preparation and follow-up for a seminar demands about the same time and effort as the average work with Wiki.

Checking the Wiki contributions in some cases requires individual reference to the texts and the writing of comments.

If the students are not sufficiently engaged, the lecturers may have to write motivating messages now and then. Regular feedback also generates greater motivation.

Literature

Häfele, H./ Maier-Häfele, K. (2004): „Kollaboratives Erstellen von (Lern-)Inhalten“, in 101 e-Learning Seminarmethoden, managerSeminare Verlags GmbH, Bonn (ISBN 3-936075-07-7), S. 171-173.

Support services

The E-Learning-Service is happy to help you with any questions relating to this and other possible applications of Wikis.

This blended-learning-scenario is based upon a project realized within the „Win a Tutor“-programme at Bremen University (ZMML).