In the latest issue of Comunicar, a theme that has received intensive discussion in the recent decade leads a series of research articles: Shared science and knowledge, Open access, technology and education.
Among the serial articles, one of them draws my special attention: Soler-Adillon, J., Pavlovic, D. & Freixa, P. (2018). Wikipedia in higher education: Changes in perceived value through content contribution. Comunicar, 54, 39-48. Given to the prevalence of wikipedia in our daily internet use as well as in academia practice, the authors conducted experiments that compared how students perceive the reliability and usefulness, and of likeliness of finding false information on Wikipedia. A significant change of perception on the above aspects was found before and after students got a chance to edit contents on wikipedia. Their appreciation of the task of writing Wikipedia articles, in terms of it being interesting and challenge also increased.
This article stimulates my further contemplation on one of the latest fashion in teaching method: flipped classroom. Recently, I attended a workshop organized by universities in Hong Kong. In the workshop, concepts and practical experience regarding this teaching method was introduced. Basically, the rationale behind is that, students in today’s digital age have mastered various means of knowledge acquisition, especially with the assistance of the internet. Therefore, the role of teacher shall be transformed from instructor to coach/tutor. And the function of classroom shall be more for discussion than for one-way lecturing. Participatory platforms such as MOOC, Moodle and to name a few should play a leading role in the process of education because students living in the digital age shall be more interested in and inclined to interactive two-way communication. Wikipedia, in this regard, is a vivid example and exemplar of participatory media. Shall it be a primary means in university teaching? Or, when students are told to search information on their own, how to guarantee the quality of knowledge they have “acquired”?
Besides the primary and ultimate issue of “how to stimulate students’ self-learning motivation”, media and information is of particular importance in this regard. In the previous blog entry, Prof. Alice Lee addressed: media and Information Literacy (MIL) are the combined capabilities of Media Literacy, Information Literacy and ICT. It means to search, evaluate, use and create media messages and information efficiently from any platform (Internet, media, library, museum, database, etc.).
Teaching is never a problem of teaching method, in my view. In the old days, as long as students are highly self-motivated, traditional teaching methods such as one-way lecturing or multi-way communication in seminar, deliver knowledge and stimulate new thoughts effectively. Great thinkers learn in libraries, classrooms, reading clubs and on their owns, instead of on MOOC or Moodle. Vice versa, without strong and critical media and information literacy and embracing little self-motivation, students, even given a large variety of learning options, will fail to receive high-quality education.
