Wiki Success - Part 3

Collaborative learning - New experience.

So now it gets interesting. The class I had this year were in general, spoon fed learners. I was initially confronted with questions like "What do I do now?", "Is this good enough?", "Have I done enough?". It was going to be a challenge to create independant and interdependant learners within the course of the year. It seemed a logical step to change their approach to learning with each other before attempting to collaborate with other people online.

I decided to tackle the task head on and launch them into an inquiry unit. The Restaurant Inquiry unit focused on goal setting, planning and teamwork related skills. In summary the students setup and ran their own restaurant from concept and design to meals on plates. It was a huge task and gave us the opportunity to integrate the concept of student led learning, ICT and a very practical, fun and hands on experience.

I was very pleased with the outcomes and how the students were starting to take responsibility for their own learning. They were starting to ask quality questions and make suggestions for the direction their learning could take. At this late point in the school year I still only have slightly more than a handful of students that are intrinsically motivated with their learning but that's more than I started with at the beginning of the year.

Next post: Collaboration continues