Incorporating Wiki into Learning Engagement Theory

I particularly enjoyed reading about Engagement Theory and how we can incorporate it into teaching successfully. The article written by Greg Kearsley and Ben Shneiderman titled 'Engagement Theory: A framework for technology-based teaching and learning' was particularly easy to follow and allowed me to consider easily how to embed it into my learning and teaching style.

Our task was to create a Wiki and then consider the capabilities of the Wiki technology, inparticular how they interact with the Learning Engagement Theory. My Wiki is a basic structure. I designed it to assist other students in our Graduate Diploma of Learning and Teaching as a place to communicate with others to include ideas and strategies appropriate to our future teaching careers.

Because the Learning Engagement Theory is based around the "Relate, Create and Donate" component it is easy to identify if your teaching strategies have followed this structure. As Wiki's are build as a communication tool for groups of people (there certainly maybe other areas of use, but at the moment this is where my limited knowledge and skills lie) it only seems logical that the Relate component fits easily here. The Relate component "emphasizes team efforts that involve communication, planning, management and social skills." (Kearsley and Shniederman, 1999, P.1). Wikis are designed for this particular purpose and therefore fit directly into this framework.

Creating an activity (Create component) that is purposeful and can have application to a specific context is highly motivating to people. If students feel a sense of meaning and purpose to the project or activity their engagement into the activity will be higher. Wikis can be used as a way of communicating with other group members and remove the necessity to send emails to each other - removing the potential to miss out someone and share the vital information. Because they can be easily manipulated by students they will be ideal to interact with others when someone is away, sick or even just in another room completing their specific components of the assignment.

I love the idea that Learning Engagement Theory focuses on having a learning tool that is relevant to the students and can contribute to something important within their lives or the lives of others - "the customer" (This is the Donate component). This makes it realistic and meaningful as apposed to learning for the sake of learning.

Although the Engagement Theory promotes human interaction within groups and does not identify as individuals interacting with an instructional program - which you may say is exactly what the Wiki is, it does indicate that "the difference between engagement and interactivity reflects the shift in thinking about computers in education as communication tools rather than some form of media delivery devices" (Kearsley & Shneiderman, 1999, P.2).

Kearsley and Shneiderman (1999) sums up the use of Engagement Theory completeley:

"Engagement Theory is presented as a model for learning in technology-based environments which synthesizes many elements from past theories of learning. The major premise is that students must be engages in their course work in order for effective learning to occur. The theory posits three primary means to accomplish engagement: (1) an emphasis on collaborative efforts (2) project-based assignments, and (3) non-academic focus. It is suggested that these three methods result in learning that is creative, meaningful, and authentic." (P.6)

References:

Kearsley, G. & Sheiderman, B. (1999) Engagement Theory: A framework for technology-based teaching and learning. Retrieved on March 20, 2010 from http://home.sprynet.com/~gkearsley/engage.htm