Incorporating high-impact educational practices into undergraduate education is an effective way to increase student engagement and success (Kuh 2008). Writing-intensive courses are part of this suite of high-impact practices, but conventional writing assignments often fall short of the goals of good pedagogic practice. Modern instructional techniques favor student-centered learning, authentic learning experiences, and a context in which students construct their own knowledge and become subject-matter experts. Writing assignments in which every student is assigned to write on the same topic run the risk of seeming inauthentic; there is little room for discovery when everyone explores the same question, year after year. In addition, the fact that traditional assignments are only seen by the student and their instructor lowers the stakes, making it seem less like a novel contribution to knowledge and more like a hoop to jump through.
Wikipedia is the most widely-used source of information, not only by members of the public, but also by decision-makers and academics. Its influence is so pervasive that the way that subjects are covered in Wikipedia drives the way that they are discussed in the technical literature (Thompson & Hanley 2017). But the quality of content on Wikipedia is uneven, and depends on the skills, knowledge, and interests of the volunteers who write and edit Wikipedia articles.
Students have the skills and background to add high-quality content to Wikipedia while gaining depth of knowledge about the subject area and taking ownership of their learning experience. Wiki Education, a non-profit based in San Francisco, California, supports university instructors who want their students to improve Wikipedia articles as part of a class assignment by providing free tools which train students to edit Wikipedia and guide them through the assignment and help instructors track student work, and provide support for instructors and students.
Whether working individually or in groups, students explore a topic that’s distinct from those researched by other students or groups. Even when students return to work on articles that were created by previous sections of a class, as sometimes happens, the work they add builds upon the work that was done previously. They are not recreating something that other students have done previously. Students find the Wikipedia assignment to be more valuable than traditional writing assignments, especially in areas like developing digital literacy, learning about the reliability of online sources, and learning to write clearly (Vetter et al. 2019).
In addition to the learning outcomes for the course participants, students in courses related to meteorology, climate change, and water have the ability to improve content on Wikipedia that has real-world relevance. Public understanding in these areas has a direct impact on public understanding of science, which can impact the development of public policy.
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