This year I used a wiki for a role-play in my classroom. The final project (students are working on it right now) was going to be a collaborative writing essay. Having gone through the process with my 9th graders has been a valuable experience. Some things were very successful (level of student engagement and the amount of writing they were willing to produce). Other areas require a lot more work.
I am going to concentrate now on areas of growth for all of us.
First of all, while students are working on their wikis or any other collaborative writing tool, it is very difficult to monitor what exactly they are working on. By nature they are very social creatures, so they just can't help it but post comments unrelated to their assignment. For the wiki and the purposes of letting students express themselves freely, I let them post social comments after they have done their assignments. They really enjoyed that freedom.
Second, writing collaboratively lacks a certain amount of responsibility. I have seen some students work very hard on reading/analyzing literature, while others just let their partners work hard. As a teacher I certainly realize that not everyone puts equal amount of effort, but I have seen students work harder when they were accountable for their own work.
Third, collaborative writing requires a lot of time. And I am not talking of writing only. It is also teaching students how to collaborate, when to write and what the appropriate etiquette is, etc. Again, it requires a lot more time than individual writing.
Having gone through the process I am wondering if I would do it again and what I would do differently... I think that I would definitely do it again, but I don't know how I would modify it yet. Also, every year the make-up of my classes are very different, and I would definitely not work on a collaborative writing with all of my students.
If anyone wants to check out our "wiki in progress", go to Mrs. Wegner's classroom here and check out the side bar on the right (9th grade role play).
Proud
11 years ago
Thanks for sharing the story of your students' collaboration. I couldn't help wonder how the Johnson brothers would be writing and teaching processes for cooperative learning groups with 21st Century collaboration in mind. Some challenges seem the same but the formats are so different and the roles are merged in the digital environment. Have sent you a request for permission to see the "wiki in progress" since you offered and am looking forward to doing so.
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