wiki puzzle piece image

I’m starting a new occasional theme on the blog focusing on simple and viable ways to improve our teaching outcomes.  The Best Bang for the Buck.

It’s easy to moan about the perceived underlying faults of the system and come up with grand solutions (usually prefaced with the statement “What they should do is..”).  It’s much harder to accept the practical realities of our situation and come up with flexible long term plans made up of loosely connected little actions, and more than an occasional compromise.  Anyway, here is the first offering.

I think it would be useful to have lecture notes wikis attached to units.  Students could post up lecture notes and chapter summaries.  Students could provide a range of approaches to understanding difficult concepts.  The notes would build up over time and be added to or edited.  The lecturer could add a comment here and there to redirect wayward interpretations.  Most students won’t make an entry but that doesn’t matter, the good students will.  It would be good for there to be some kind of recognition for contributors (any ideas?  ‘Best Team Player’ trophy?).

We could dump the dodgy hybrid PowerPoint/lecture note slides which don’t adequately achieve either purpose.  There wouldn’t be the same pressure on academics to get the required quota of words out their mouths in a lecture.  The lecture could be based on issues, and cases, and real world application of principles.  There would be more time for group discussion and interaction.  Students could relax a little and not worry about missing a key point and getting lost in the lecture.

On the other hand there is a bit of research around that shows that note taking improves the retention of information. I have a few problems with that.

  • Not all students take notes and there is no way to make them
  • Retention of information and knowing how to apply it are different things.
  • Most students don’t read the entire text book  and certainly don’t summarize it.

What about attendance I hear you cry.  If your lecture is just another summary of the text book, then why should students show up.  Where is the value-add.  On the other hand if your time is freed up to deal with relevant, real world (and perhaps fun) applications of the information then you are likely to see an increase in attendance (regardless of wiki notes and lecture recordings).

I can think of half a dozen other advantages, not the least being there is no significant overhead.

Why not try it, what have you got lose.