Teaching large classes: Increasing learner activity using Wikis

Abstract

In large classes teachers and students often encounter problems like lack of learning activities, lack of motivation, lack of profound feedback or lack of learning transfer. In this paper we present an approach to meet these typical difficulties by using a wiki-based collaborative e-learning scenario moving from a teacher-centred focus to a more learner-centred one. The evaluation and the final examination results indicate that the approach was successful in terms of learners’ activation and learning outcome. Nevertheless, the evaluation also shows that students participating in this project did not appreciate the collaboration experience in general and valued it as time-consuming and less effective regarding the preparation of the final examination. The paper closes with the discussion of the project’s findings and lessons learned.