Wikibooks talk:Guidelines for class projects

Shouldn't this be a help page, rtather than a policy or guideline? -- SB_Johnny | talk 13:44, 21 October 2006 (UTC)


 * We could try to change it to be a help page if you want. I am not dead-set on having it be a policy/guideline. I do think that we should have some kind of registry where class projects are listed, however. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 19:56, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Preparing students
I found with our (Human physiology) book that the students were very uncomfortable at first in the wiki environment. None of us (including myself) had ever edited a wiki in any way. Even when students became comfortable with the basic process, they were shy about making changes to each others' work. Most reviews of other chapters were vague encouragements ("good job") rather than specific recommendations (but I think reviewing each others work did give them good ideas on things to add to their chapters). It was hard to convey the idea of editing boldly. I think if I had prepared a basic "tip sheet" with an overview of the project, basic editing techniques, sources for additional information, etc. that we would have had a stronger start. It also would have been easier for my students if I had given a basic outline to follow for each chapter (e.g., Introduction, Main Concepts, Glossary, References) and if I had set specific criteria that needed to be met at specific time periods (I'm not sure what those criteria would be--I'm not an English teacher, and grading writing was very difficult for me).

One thing that did work well is that the students helped each other out a lot. When one person figured out how to add images, that information spread quite quickly through the class.

These were just a few random thoughts I wanted to include. Provophys 02:16, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

I suggest having students complete a mini wiki assignment, making some minor edits to an existing book early in the term so that they get introduced to what wikimarkup looks like, the my contributions, talk and discussion pages, user pages, and peer feedback. This makes them much more comfortable when returning with their main ideas that they need to organize in the wikibook, and makes them more proficient at editing the work of peers without causing accidental damage. --Paul James (talk) 20:07, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Move to enforce
I would like to make this page an official guideline. Once this page is made official, I would like to include mention of it in the welcome template. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 19:35, 11 December 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree --Paul James (talk) 20:07, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Grading
I added some content to Guidelines_for_class_projects on how to grade individual work. It could use some fancy markup italics/bold etc, maybe even a link to what a contributions page looks like...? If anyone wants to take a shot. --Paul James (talk) 20:07, 14 June 2009 (UTC)