Teaching With Wikipedia

Open Pedagogy in Practice

One way you can use open pedagogy in your classroom and teach information literacy skills is to work with an organization called WiKi Education Links to an external site.. Through the Wikipedia Student Program, "university instructors assign students to write Wikipedia articles... [so that] students [can] research course-related topics that are missing or underrepresented, synthesize the available literature, and use [the] free tools and trainings to add the information to Wikipedia (Teaching with Wikipedia Links to an external site.). For example, you can have students work on updating the biographies of female scientists, or another subject related to your class. 

Please note that you do have to apply before the start of the semester Links to an external site.. 

Below are resources, supplied by a Wiki Education facilitator, for instructors who would like to assign their students to edit Wikipedia as part of a classroom assignment Links to an external site.. 

      1. Resources for instructors: specifically, take a look at the "Case Studies Links to an external site." handbook and any relevant subject-specific resources.
      2. Our online Dashboard: The Dashboard is a tool built to help you track your students' work on Wikipedia, provide access to our online trainings and assignment timeline, and more. To take a look, visit dashboard.wikiedu.org Links to an external site.. If you log in and create a Wikipedia username for yourself, you'll be able to review our newly-updated online orientation for new instructors.
      3. Sample project timelines: If you think you'd like to try and draft an assignment for a future course, you'll need to first do the orientation, and then use our online assignment design wizard to create your course page. To do so, just click the purple "Create course" button once you complete the online training.
        You can view a sample 9-week project timeline Links to an external site. from fall 2017. This template can be adjusted and customized anywhere from 6-weeks to a semester long project.
        While there, don't forget to look at the "Timeline" tab for a weekly look at how the project is progressing, the "Students" tab for a look at all the students enrolled and what articles they are working on during the assignment, and the "Articles" tab for a list of all the articles the students touched "live" already this term. If you drop down a row in the "Students" tab you can also see edit summaries of each student edit on Wikipedia, and if use the assessment tools on the "Articles" tab you can look at the cumulative changes students have made to the article throughout the course of the assignment.
      4. Contact Wiki Education Links to an external site. for more information.

More Resources from Wiki Education

Teach with Wikipedia Links to an external site.

For Instructors Links to an external site.

Subject Specific Handouts for Students Links to an external site.

Attributions

Links to an external site.Teaching with Wikipedia Links to an external site.. Wiki Education.  CC-BY-SA Links to an external site.