Do you know about the Wikipedia Education project? You can teach your class by having your students write for Wikipedia. See you to do this with this presentation geared around a college animal behavior course at Washington University in St. Louis. Students learn best when they are engaged in actively creating new information. Here I detail how to transform your teaching with in-class writing for Wikipedia. It is fun, compelling, and educational.

1. Strassmann/ Queller lab group
Team-based writing for Wikipedia
about animal behavior
Joan E. Strassmann strassmann@wustl.edu
http://strassmannandquellerlab.wordpress.com
Read my blog! http://sociobiology.wordpress.com

2. Tell me and I forget,
teach me and I may
remember, involve me
and I learn – Benjamin
Franklin

3. Lose the daydream lecture face and
write!

4. Either write something
worth reading or do
something worth writing –
Benjamin Franklin

5. What is worth writing about?

6. Write what you know.
Write what you learn

7. In a class about animal behavior, the
students write about animal behavior

8. In a class about animal behavior, the
students write about animal behavior

9. For animal behavior, an animal
and a concept works well
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_Program:
Washington_University_in_St._Louis/Behavioral_E
cology_%28Fall_2013%29

10. How to share writing?

11. Why Wikipedia?

12. Why Wikipedia?
It is powerful, read by everyone,
generates discussion, constantly
improved, and referenced.

13. Is Wikipedia
accurate?
• Yes, and always getting
more so.
• If you write for it, you
learn what is trustworthy
and what is not.
• Teachers that don’t allow
Wikipedia to be cited
teach students not to cite
all their actual sources.

14. How Wikipedia?
There are online resources to
facilitate writing for Wikipedia.

15. How Wikipedia?
There are online resources to
facilitate teaching with Wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wikiWikipedia:Education_program

16. Intro to a Wikipedia page
Wikipedia pages have tabs. The main
one where you read information is
the Article tab

17. Intro to a Wikipedia page
Wikipedia pages have tabs. The tab
where there is discussion about what
is written is the Talk tab

18. Intro to a Wikipedia page
Wikipedia pages have tabs. There are
other tabs to the right of the page. The
Read tab is the same as the Article tab.

19. Intro to a Wikipedia page
Wikipedia pages have tabs. The Edit
tab is where you change things.

20. Intro to a Wikipedia page
Wikipedia pages have tabs. The View
history tab shows the history of the
page.

21. Intro to a Wikipedia page
Before you make changes, you should log in,
so the edits can be attributed to you, not
just to your IP address. If Wikipedia text is in
red, it means the editor was not logged in.

22. Intro to a
Wikipedia
page

23. Intro to a Wikipedia page
You can set up a watchlist to keep
track of the topics you have worked
on the most.

24. How about that behavior course?

25. What is the overall structure of the
course?
• Four components:
– Learn most of the material through study
questions and weekly quizzes.
– Focus on one book chapter and learn that material
in detail, in a group of six.
– Write for Wikipedia, rewrite, comment on other
student writing.
– Teach high school students in a Saturday
workshop.

26. What exactly do I do with Wikipedia?
• Teach an official Wikipedia Education Program
course

27. What exactly do I do with Wikipedia?
• Teach an official Wikipedia Education Program course

28. What do I have students do?
• Add 500 words and 5 references to an entry
• Add or create a 1000 word and 10 references
entry
• Add or create another 1000 word and 10
references entry
• Review each other’s work, within a group of
three and across groups of three
• Revise their work repeatedly in response to the
comments within the classroom and from the
Wikipedia readers

29. What are the assignments?

30. What are the groups of three?
Teams of students, but each writes all
their own material.
• Writing expert
• Wikipedia expert
• Fact checker

31. How do I know exactly what a student
wrote?
• Have them turn in their words on Blackboard
at the same time they make the changes live
on Wikipedia

32. Why not wait a few drafts before
putting writing live on Wikipedia?
• Engagement with the outside community is a
key part of the revision process.
• Students do their best work when it counts, so
the first draft should count.

33. What if a student puts incorrect
information on Wikipedia?
• There are many ways to discover this
– Members of their own triad
– Other students in the class
– The teaching assistants read the material
– I read everything and make changes as needed at
the end of the class

34. What do we do during class?
• Sit at tables for six.
• Take quizzes, discuss quizzes.

35. What do we do during class?
• Watch animal behavior videos, answer questions,
discuss.
• Work on Wikipedia assignments.

36. What do we do during class?
• Plan and practice high school workshops.
• Much discussion on paper, with posters of questions
and comments.

37. You can fill class time without lecturing

39. Bedbugs
Kai Jones

40. Bedbugs – Kai Jones

41. Black-throated blue
warbler - Tianyi Cai

42. Worker policing
Kevin Li

43. Writing for Wikipedia is fun!

44. Do I have any other tips?
• Yes, join a project. Write about the issues they
want covered, to the extent this is in accord
with course goals. This will help get attention
to the site and reviewers.

45. Why don’t I have team written pages?
• There are teams and the members help each
other.
• Ultimately each student learns most from
doing their own writing and engaging with the
Wikipedia community.