Bonni: [00:00:00] Today on episode 158 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast, Judy Chan joins me to talk about using Wikipedia in our teaching.

Production Credit: [00:00:12] Produced by Innovate Learning, maximizing human potential.

Bonni: [00:00:21] Welcome to this episode of Teaching in Higher Ed. This is the space where we explore the art and science of being more effective at facilitating learning. We also share ways to improve our personal productivity so we can have more peace in our lives and be even more present for our students.

Bonni: [00:00:49] Today I am welcoming to the show for the first time a food science expert Judy Chan is both a food science expert and also works as an educational developer in the center for teaching and learning at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. And I’d like to read for you a bit about her teaching philosophy as expressed in her teaching portfolio she says as a teacher.

Bonni: [00:01:20] “I want my students to learn content in its legitimate forms. I want my students to learn where to find legitimate content. I want my students to learn how to critically evaluate the legitimacy of available content and I want my students to create relevant authentic meaning from content and their experiences. Ultimately I want my students to contribute to the discovery of new information.

Bonni: [00:01:48] Judy Chan has a Ph.D. She is a lecturer in food nutrition and health, land and food systems and I’m so excited for you to get to hear this conversation that we had about using Wikipedia and our teaching because so much of her philosophy is embraced in her use of Wikipedia and I’m excited to get to have you here this conversation with Judy. Judy, welcome to Teaching in Higher Ed.

Judy: [00:02:16] It’s my pleasure.

Bonni: [00:02:18] I know that you first heard about Teaching in Higher Ed from your colleague Isabeau. And I’m so pleased to have been introduced to you and to get to talk to you today about teaching with Wikipedia. Judy let’s start by going back to where some of the earliest memories you have of just using Wikipedia way way way before you even started teaching with it.

Judy: [00:02:39] You can find anything you want. You can find the answer you wanted but you or my professor told me not to use as a primary resource.

Bonni: [00:02:50] Yeah.

Judy: [00:02:51] But it’s a good source of information.

Bonni: [00:02:53] Yeah. And that really is a contradiction isn’t it. Judy we’re told don’t use this. It’s bad. It’s full of lies. Some people think it is. It’s got all these wrong the wrong information. But then so many times when we go to use it ourselves it can be really helpful. I know for myself I was taking a philosophy class in my doctoral program and I had only taken philosophy when I was an undergrad just one class and it was philosophy of love.

Bonni: [00:03:23] So there’s a little bit of a stretch and read in some of these philosophers I would find it very helpful to first look on Wikipedia to get a little bit of a background of who the philosopher was and some of their core beliefs and then to go do the assigned reading. Have there been particular areas that have helped you understand things better that you were recall from using Wikipedia yourself.

Judy: [00:03:47] Yes I do. I before I teach my lecture I’m also going to be copy that just to make sure some of the information that I’m going to teach will be at the same level as to what the students will be in the same scientific level that my student understands. So I go in to pick a quick look before I go into my lecture and ask for my teaching and my for my personal life when I’m say come when my thought of disquiet me medication. It’s also a place that my go take a look.

Bonni: [00:04:21] And tell me about the time then that things began to shift for you. You weren’t just using it for personal reasons. You weren’t just using it to help prepare for a lecture but you started to uncover a little bit more of how we might incorporate Wikipedia into our teaching. Talk a little bit about that time.

Judy: [00:04:42] Well there, it’s a long time as I said. I wanted to do open education for a long time where we are really in Canada. So there is not a book that is useful for us. I teach in food sign so it’s a smart discipline and we have our our course content that is hidden behind the learning management system. And I always wanted to open the course content up and in doing so I put all my course content on a on a word institue at UBC on our UPC Wiki. So all the course content has been open.

Judy: [00:05:23] And then a couple of years later I thought my students were doing the team project. I love to work. I my students also like to work now because I structure a way that is very supportive for everyone anyway so teamwork. And then they start pulling. I asked them to put the term paper on the UBC wiki so that students can view each other’s term paper. And the benefit really came when when the students two three years later can go back to look at all the term papers from some student in the past.

Judy: [00:06:01] They… and then eventually when I look at the term paper produced by my students they are actually better than some of the Wikipedia article on the UBC Wiki is format in such a way that as you look at it feels like a Wikipedia article to set up the format and that’s that’s done on purpose. And when I look at home on my I just want my students to put their work to show them to a more wider audience.

Bonni: [00:06:34] When I have used wikis in my classes it’s been very minimal. And one of the occasions I have tried using a wiki would be to have students make a list of where their blogs are posted so that each other can look on this wiki and know where everybody’s blogs are and then go subscribe to them. And it has been sometimes a little bit challenging for them to even envision collaborative writing like that.

Bonni: [00:07:01] And what I’ve just described isn’t really very collaborative at all. Have you found challenges when you first introduce your students to a wiki environment. To this idea that it’s editable and that more than one person can work on it. Or have things really changed. I guess more because people are using more Google Docs and kind of more familiar with it do you have struggles or does it come pretty easy for your students.

Judy: [00:07:29] Looking back there was definitely a struggle the struggle continues on. But I suspect a lot of open practice. For example my meat course evaluation is done on a Google doc so the students can go in and say what they like like about my teaching and what they don’t like about my teaching. So it’s all very open and in terms of Wiki I have smaller assignments that they start to contribute to where I was set up some of the framework the tables will be set up for them I will have phrases like enter your thoughts here.

Judy: [00:08:05] So your effort is there like I give them very concrete structures on where they should how they can contribute to the wiki and then Bame they think suffer a little bit. I have I have A’s I have friends my colleagues who also like to use Wiki. They are on hand and a lot of students find it useful just knowing someone is there.

Judy: [00:08:30] They don’t actually use the service as much as I envisioned. They I guess they just happy that someone will be there and if they send an email to me or to my case the A’s and myself will help them do some tricks on the wiki page. So I try to recognize the fact call and tell them that it’s not easy and but over all over the years it’s actually getting easier and easier to use Wiki and Wikipedia.

Bonni: [00:09:04] I hear a few themes in what you’re talking about and I don’t want people to miss it. Judy So just to go backward a little bit what you most recently stressed is so vital is just that our students know that we’re here to support them or if we’re not directly here if it’s a larger class than that they’re made more aware on a pretty regular basis of what other support is available. One of the things I’ve really been struck by is what the research says about some of our more at risk students such as are first generation students that they might be less likely to feel like it’s appropriate for them to approach us to ask for help.

Bonni: [00:09:46] So we have to be really purposeful in letting our students know when they’re trying new things that we’re here for them and that there’s a whole team of people if there is a team of people ready to help. The other thing that I’m sort of laughing at myself because I I can say that what little success actually what little experience I have had with wikis has been failure after failure.

Bonni: [00:10:07] And as you’re describing what you’ve done Judy is that you’ve set up more scaffolding for the wiki. You’re not going to just do like what I did just use it once and then move on to some. I was using it so that then we could get them into blogging. But it’s too confusing for them to start with that. And where do I click to edit and what is this. And because I have people do it erase the whole thing. They thought it was more like form. Oh I’m going to erase the person’s name who is above my name because this is like a form and that’s not my name so I’m going to erase her name would be like oh no.

Bonni: [00:10:42] So what you’re describing though is that you had scaffolding that built up they’re using the wiki tools multiple times and it’s threaded throughout your class because otherwise I would say in my experience it’s probably not worth it if it’s not going to be pretty integrated into a course. To try to introduce them to it because it does take a little bit of time especially depending on what you’re trying to do with that.

Bonni: [00:11:06] What are some of the behind the scenes that we should know about if we were ever going to think about having our students work inside of Wikipedia has all we see is just the front and what it’s like as a user to search for items and to read them but what is it like behind the scenes for someone to get set up as an editor or some other way of engaging with Wikipedia.

Judy: [00:11:30] So there’s so many ways to use Wikipedia in the classroom and. And the U.S. is the first thing you should do is contact Wikipedia education foundation. They also have a big team of people. I don’t it’s not really big but I feel that they are baked because they they offer a lot of support to me to be honest too.

Judy: [00:11:52] At the beginning I actually feel that it’s a little overwhelming. I didn’t know that they have so much support. And I had the idea of doing this Wikipedia project for years now especially in the last couple of years because of my I call it a success of UBC Wiki. And so I was doing my thing on during the Christmas break getting ready for first week of classes in the new year. And then I find this to so much group resources available.

Judy: [00:12:21] But I had to do on my own I had to screen them all making sure this not overwhelm I because I was overwhelmed. So I don’t want to overwhelm my student. But at the same time offer them just enough to complete no assignment was set. So so those are a lot of information out there and Wikipedia Education Foundation will be a good starting point.

Judy: [00:12:45] Then as the instructor I think going to hear more people about the experience and look at the case that these types of work my Wikipedia Education Foundation. Just look at how people have assignments in the coursework because it can be very simple people. Some people will start with just go in and make some entry.

Judy: [00:13:08] Just going to somee Wikipedia articles and at the citation, it’s actually very good starting point for students to go in look up some information that is relevant for the course and to question is the statement that is written on Wikipedia is it evem valid. Is it back up by additional scientific research. And and then just go there and pose that question as a viewer like Is this where is the evidence. And I mean that itself can be a Wikipedia assignment.

Bonni: [00:13:48] And what do you say make an entry. Can you explain a little bit more what an entry is.

Judy: [00:13:55] Entry is can be simple as simple as going in to be copied here. Amy keep the article and adding a are changing the spelling and or adding the class of can you can someone please provide a citation. Those can be small entries. Are you a instructor may want to ask to student to make thise little changes or the changes or at 5 pictures or at 2 or more on a point. And that could be the beginning of a Wikipedia related assignment.

Bonni: [00:14:39] And when if you were going to give me an assignment today I’m going to become your student which I’m really going to be a slow student in food science since I’ve never seen a single class so I I’ll be your perfect guinea pig. What what do I need to do to make an entry or to add a citation or to add five pictures into a Wikipedia entry or I guess what pedia there not what is that what is the whole article called are the articles?

Judy: [00:15:07] Yes.

Bonni: [00:15:07] OK.

Judy: [00:15:08] So the front pages of the article I will then. So if you are you in my class I teach face to face class but if I teach on my game I will make a small video. And when I would show the student is at the very top the top of the Wikipedia page closer to the right hand side just to the left of the search Wikipedia box. There are three tabs there. Read most of us will be reading. The most common tab that ninety nine point nine percent of us will be reading and then links to the wheat. There is a real sources. Are you clicking Bonni? Is every one clicking?

Bonni: [00:15:52] I am.

Judy: [00:15:54] And you click View Source.

Bonni: [00:15:59] I did. Yep.

Judy: [00:15:59] And you can start making changes.

Bonni: [00:16:02] I am I am sort of embarrassed to say this but I’ve said a lot of embarrassing things on the show before. I have never clicked on View Source or view history before and it’s just been there all along and I just never thought to click on it and I say next to add a call is also talk. Next article over on the left so this is this is where we can get a little look at what’s happening behind the scenes without even having to create an account or log in. This is really interesting.

Bonni: [00:16:27] And then you’re saying that you would start to talk through some of your critiques of this bread article because if I was a student and I’m just learning about food science I’m probably not going to be very good at being critical of the article. You can start to show me how I might put a lens as a food scientist on so I could view this article differently right. How do you tell your students why you’re doing this. How do you introduce to them the importance of the assignment that you’ve given them for. Using Wikipedia in this different way.

Judy: [00:17:07] Because I have use UBC wiki for a few years now. And like I said I have had some amazing articles. It is already better than is on Wikipedia so I can just show them. Look at this paper. Like for example my students what they work on bread is way better than what we just saw two minutes ago. There’s more scientific content. There is more explanation of how the bubblies texture is create and so is quite easy to demonstrate that another very easy way to demonstrate is on a lot of the food article and the two that came to my mind are smoked salmon and salami.

Judy: [00:17:51] Most of the food article will have a little bit of the history how they use where they come from and how people consume. But when you look the part is no there’s no mention of the processing we the use of chemical the safety level the nurturing content all of that is essential to my course. And so all of the information I’m missing is that the first layer of information where they come from how the food is made at home not at the manufacturing level like the science behind the food those information are not there. And you know like for example when we go into salami and smoked salmon and all the things that we later to the manufacturing practice. My student contributed to it. I can say it will [?].

Bonni: [00:18:46] Yeah. That’s so great. And then if we were to go and look at the history if we knew what our students name was or if they used their real name we would be able to tell who that was because it got all the time stamps on it. And what was changed. That’s. That must be really fun to go back and see that and then the students must be able to take a lot of pride in it as well.

Judy: [00:19:10] Yes.

Bonni: [00:19:11] So you’re talking about the UBC Wikis are these things that are still up now that we’ll be able to link to so people can go see their own comparison of the kinds of articles that you have up and compare those to some of these Wikipedia ones.

Judy: [00:19:25] Yes.

Bonni: [00:19:26] Oh wonderful. So we’ll be putting those in the show notes. This is going to be for everyone listening this will be teachinginhighered.com/158 and we’ll be linking to Judy’s articles from her students and herself in the UBC wiki and then also some of the ones that she’s been describing in Wikipedia which of course I’m sure by the time this show airs they’ll be perfect for it as I am kidding of course.

Bonni: [00:19:53] I’m curious Judy what I have been really intrigued you talked about your interest in open educational resources and I’ve been very intrigued by open text books and some people have been using Press books. Robin DeRose I believe us her last name. She’s one who’s written pretty extensively about her use of press books and I’ll put a link to that in the show notes as well.

Bonni: [00:20:21] I was laughing before I remember that her name is Robin DeRosa I remember that her Twitter handle is actual ham H A M which is just one of the most amusing Twitter handles I ever heard of but she has written a lot about using Press books to do an open text book with her students.

Bonni: [00:20:41] And I’m curious if you have thought at all about doing that since you mentioned the difficulty in finding good food science textbooks or if you find the wiki approach that you’ve been taking as somehow one that you would prefer versus doing something as formal as the open textbook.

Judy: [00:20:58] I’m happy with where I am using the UBC Wiki as a platform to share the course content. It’s password protected. Only people at my institute with the password our common password can go into at that. The content. I am not the only instructor who teach this course. This is the introduction to science courses are there are other instructors who are using the same content that we we all teach the same content.

Judy: [00:21:29] So it’s quite important for us that nobody will go into the Wiki and start messing around. So we know what we are teaching and and once in a while we will have a students who go with tension to change some of the information on our content page. It happened to me once just wait before the midterm and one of the students studied the wrong information. It becomes a good learning opportunities for all three of us me myself the person who changed the content and the person who got that fat mark because of content. Of course I did not penalize that student but it was amazing to my field instructors. So keeping it in a safe environment is quite important to my situation.

Bonni: [00:22:17] One of the real things I am appreciating about what you’ve been saying is that we shouldn’t go chase after every new tool that we hear about. I’ve talked about on the show before having a someday maybe list and that every time I’ll hear about something new and by the way Robin’s post about open textbooks fits in this category. Oh that sounds like something that might be really fun to experiment with. It goes on that list. I can’t go chase down every new tool that I hear about.

Bonni: [00:22:45] So that’s part of what I’m hearing is you being disciplined about using it through out to your course and not just scattering you know this this tool this other tool this to it’s very integrated in your pedagogy.

Bonni: [00:22:59] And then the other thing that I’m hearing you say Judy is that it’s also you are thinking more holistically about what other faculty are going to use in your program and how central the wiki is to the program as a whole. And that is another thing that’s so vital for us to be doing so that we can build more for our students that’s more longitudinal because once I have learned this then I can really settle in and start learning a little bit more deeply about your intended purposes like learning more about food science but it’s less about you know where do I click and where do I go to do this but then I can really start to see them the size a little bit better as a learner.

[00:23:37] Before we go to their recommendations section Judy I would love if you could share about one or two mistakes that you feel like you’ve made in trying to utilize Wikipedia and you’re teaching that maybe those of us listening could avoid if we hear your advice.

Judy: [00:23:52] One mistake that was apparent just the two hours before this time of us deal with it’s very strict about copyright material. And so my and when my students because they worked in a sandbox Wikipedia provides us with some. So my students can be crafting day content and collaborate together behind the scenes before they push the content out to the real article.

Judy: [00:24:20] And but but we didn’t know that every single picture that we post on Wikipedia has to be our own work. I sort of knew but I forgot about that. I didn’t tell the students so some of my students would be e-mailing me the hours before I’d say Judy we can use the picture. We find that most amazing picture is not really we didn’t pay attention to copyright. And I think again this is just an amazing learning opportunity for follow and for myself.

Bonni: [00:24:52] Yeah. Yeah that sounds wonderful. You had actually mentioned earlier talking about the assignment to have students add five pictures and in the back of my head I was thinking Oh OK. So when we asked students to add pictures we it often does uncover these questions about creative commons and what is you know fair use to use pictures and all that and I mean that’s a whole nother level of learning but still important for our students to learn so probably worth it for you to take the time to educate them about that because if they’re going to be doing this in food science and perhaps going into research or education they’re going to need to know about that as well.

Judy: [00:25:33] Absolutely. And Bonni can I go back to the earlier question about why you use Wiki as a platform.

Bonni: [00:25:41] Yeah of course.

Judy: [00:25:42] So am I. Yeah. So we talk about the instructor and my fellow colleagues but also for our students I think we are using so many different technologies now. Every day a ticking five four five six courses at every one of us may be doing something times the meal. And I know as a fact at my institute the UBC Wiki is great can be easily integrated into Prozess into our learning management system.

Judy: [00:26:11] So for students they may not notice this is a different tool and so it gives more and more seamless environment from one corps train but that’s another reason I haven’t go to the type of open pass book system.

Bonni: [00:26:28] That is so vital and I have been guilty duty of trying to use too many different systems and it doesn’t it doesn’t help them learn very well.

Bonni: [00:26:38] So I thank you for encouraging us for that. That really it gets too overwhelming for them. And then they stop learning the most important thing which in your case is going to be learning about food science and it’s too much about how do we make this technology work.

Judy: [00:26:51] Right. But you know what we could be the one use it almost every day so maybe it’s better for them to at least learn about those perhaps at the top of the part that’s looking at this history. Hopefully that will be beneficial to load in other disciplines in their own area of interest too.

Bonni: [00:27:12] Oh that’s fabulous. Well this is the time in this show where we’re going to go into the recommendations and I’m going to do a hodgepodge. So one recommendation I will have is just to recap what you already said which is to go look at the Wikipedia education foundation and do a little just a little navigating and seen how you might be inspired by their case studies that you described and I guess people could start like I did with actually clicking on edit and view history and the talk of things that are at the top. I never thought to click on before and seen a little bit of some of the behind the scenes that are in the various articles that are within your discipline that would be fun.

Bonni: [00:27:53] And on a completely different note completely different and that has nothing to do with food science but I can’t wait if I can find some way to connect it. But I know on a prior episode when Stephen Brookfield was on the show he recommended the television series Better Call Saul. And I’m pretty sure the last time that Stephen was on it was season 2 and now they have started season three. I think there have been as of when we’re recording this five or six episodes. But by the time it’s out maybe more than that.

Bonni: [00:28:26] This is an AMC show and it’s a legal drama and it’s a spinoff of some of the characters that were in the show Breaking Bad although it totally stands alone you don’t have to have watched Breaking Bad in order to get a great kick out of this legal drama. Better Call Saul, it is my recommendation just of some great acting in some great storytelling.

Bonni: [00:28:48] And it’s just entertainment. It’s sort of fun to have something like this where we can be taken totally out of our own reality and enter someone else’s world. I find it very relaxing at the end of a day just to sort of get captured up in another another world and that’s Better Call Saul. And that’s my recommendation and Judy I’m going to pass it over to you now to recommend whatever you would like.

Judy: [00:29:10] My recommendation is to play with kids go find a whole bunch of kids in your neighbors and school and and if your parents are playing we play with the kids and not not to discipline them not to teach them not to love to show them the wonder of the world but just play.

Bonni: [00:29:32] Oh what a wonderful recommendation. Well I’m going to be doing a lot of that because it’s summertime for me so I’m not teaching and I’m going to be writing a book this summer but I also have some days I’ll be caring for our kids and I’m going to take your advice. Judy thank you so much and thanks for being on the show today.

Judy: [00:29:50] Thank you. Bonni it is such a wonderful pressure to come talk about it. Thank you.

Bonni: [00:29:58] Thanks once again to Judy Chan for being on today’s show and for all of the passion that you have for teaching excellence. And now I want to go check out all the food related pages. You’re making me hungry in a good way and hungry to be a better teacher and hungry to use bad puns at the end of the episode.

Bonni: [00:30:19] Thanks to all of you for listening. If we have yet to connect on Twitter I would love to have the interaction that happens there. And I know enough to wait and someday I’m going to tell that story. Maybe it will be on the 208 episode that’s kind of a good idea. Thanks again for listening and I’ll see you next time on Teaching in Higher Ed.

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