Student feedback

by derrickwillard on February 5, 2010 at 9:21 am · Filed under social media, wiki and tagged: exam prep, social media, student work, wiki

So I ended the last post about the creative power of wikis and blogs by noting that the majority of my students have positive things to say about using these tools.  So, I thought I would let last year’s AP Environmental Science students support that assertion.

Last fall, we created an exam review wiki to help students review the semester content.

Each student was given a topic (puzzle method-everybody gets a piece) and had to:

1. Create one page of content (text, graphics)
2. Edit two other wiki pages
3. Contribute to discussion on 3 other wiki pages of interest

They were given about a week to do this.  I can send anyone the details of the assignment if you want to try it.  But, back to the point, what did they think of this activity?

Writing prompt: Explain what you got out of the wiki assignment.

• I got a consolidated set of information to review for the exam, and it was helpful for sorting out what was going to be on the exam and what I needed to study more.
• Having to create a page, edit two, and comment on three discussions basically makes you study/ read 6 separate lessons. Meaning that it did engage me and  help in the learning of material.
• I read almost everyone’s page and printed out the ones that were most challenging for me to “memorize”. I like having something tangible to hold, but the wiki did work wonders. IT was an excellent idea, and i think it shows that it helped with my exam grade.
• I really enjoyed using the wiki. Not only did it make me start reviewing days before, but the last night before the exam it provided lots of good, concise information in an accessible location. Although I do not feel like it changed my participation in the course, it did make me more involved in studying.
• This was extremely helpful. it was like a master study guide and it was my best resource.  i missed the deadline for editing but had 3 discussions, and almost everyone did a good job, so overall this was the best way to study for the exam.
• I really liked the peer review.
• I thought that the wiki was the most helpful review that I had for this class or any other class for that matter. I chose to do more work than I had to because it allowed me to help others learn concepts that they didn’t understand while reinforcing the concepts for myself as well as allowed me to ask questions extremely late once you had already gone to sleep. This was beneficial because I felt well prepared for the exam! We should have wiki’s for all of the tests!
• It helped me prepare for the exam.
• The questions raised by my peers often directed my attention to areas that I needed to spend more time reviewing.
• I hated that we started it while we were supposed to study for other exams, and I wish you would have given us more time to work on our pages, but I thought the wiki, once the research was done on each topic, was a great way to study, and it helped a lot to participate in discussions and to read over everyone’s pages.
• I got a lot out of the wiki assignment. I was under the impression that it was an all-or-nothing opportunity, so I did not participate after I built my page and missed the next deadline. However, the wiki was my main resource for studying, and I felt very well prepared when taking the exam.
• I still think the exam review should be on paper because it is nice to everything in your hands at once.  The most useful thing about was looking at the questions on the discussion board and how rapidly students answered back.
• Bettering my understanding by trying to explain concepts to others.
• Very helpful, read everyone’s pages. very good review.
• I got alot out of the class wiki for the exam. By making my page it forced me to start thinking about the topics early. I went through each and every page as I studied to make sure I covered all the concepts and see what others thought was important. I also found it helpful to comment on wikis and get feedback from my peers and the teacher. It gave me something to be engaged in as I studied for the exam.

So, you decide.  Is it worth it to try this?  Don’t you want your students to use words like helpful, great resource, thinking and engaged when they speak of an activity?  Of course, there were some naysayers too, but that is a topic for another post.

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