VandyChem5600

Teaching through Wikipedia: politically incorrect perspectives and advice

Thinking about using Wikipedia as part of your course? Doing so gives students experience integrating technical knowledge and in copy-editing, both relevant to their professional development. In terms of implementation, here are my observations based on several years of experience.

• The most important step is the selection of topics that allow students to contribute new content. The instructor should make sure that good general sources exist on the assigned topics, preferably reviews and textbooks. A major part of the learning experience comes from students re-describing or summarizing what they read from these broad sources.
• Students should be graded on the quality of their content, not the quantity.
• Peer review (by fellow students) is a joke, how can a fellow student critique an article on topics that they barely fathom, not to mention dealing with conflict of interest in grading their friends?
• Bear in mind that editors at Wikipedia are not supposed to serve babysitters or graders for your class. We often, even routinely, erase everything that classes contribute, especially when the instructor is uninvolved. --Smokefoot (talk) 04:03, 14 February 2018 (UTC)