Wikis for Collaborative Learning and Knowledge Construction

Our mission this week (if we choose to accept it) is to create a lesson plan that incorporates Wikis as a means to construct knowledge collaboratively. I took this opportunity to redesign the lesson plan for a Human Performance Technology (HPT) course, incorporating a final project that requires students to use Wikis for collaboration on evaluating, analyzing, and developing a process redesign. What a great concept! I think I will use this lesson plan for future courses!

Course Title:

 Introduction to Human Performance Technology

Target Audience:

Graduate students enrolled in the Master of Business Administration, Performance Improvement degree program

Course Description:

This course surveys the field of performance improvement by examining foundational concepts, theories, and terminology.  Students study theories and practices while exploring emerging directions of Human Performance Technology (HPT) that connect to their immediate reality.

The course includes weekly discussions, opportunities to share comprehension of course topics, concepts and principles via written assignments and a final team Wiki collaboration project that allows for students to incorporate course learning through an evaluation, analysis and redesign of a process.

Learning Objectives:

•           Understand and apply the foundational theories of 

          Human Performance Technology

•        Distinguish the differences between HPT interventions at the worker/work team

          level vs. workplace/organizational level and their corresponding differences in 

          methodology

•         Develop and evaluate effective performance measurements 

•         Develop and present a final collaborative project in Wiki 

           that reflects an analysis of a current organizational process 

           and an intervention redesign using the concepts, principles, and 

           models of the HPT process.

Required Text and Materials:

•        Mello, Jeffrey, (2010) Strategic Human Resource Management

•      Pershing, James A. (2006).  Handbook of Human Performance Technology, 3rd   

        Edition.  3 ed. Washington D.C.: Pfeiffer. 

•      Course handouts and supplemental materials

Instructional Methods:

This course will take place in a virtual, asynchronous classroom environment.  Students are expected to be present in the classroom no less than four times per week.  The course will also use a Wiki site as established by the instructor to collaborate on the final course project.  Teams of four will be assigned and students are expected to work collaboratively on their Wiki page to address the learning outcomes of the final project.  Details of the final project are provided under the subheading, “Wiki Collaborative Project”.

Wiki Collaboration Project:

MeddiWare designs custom software for small to medium size companies.  The company focuses their marketing efforts mostly on international companies in the manufacturing industry that have specific software application needs.  In order to streamline their order-to-design process, MeddiWare needs sales reps to capture all requirements during sales calls with clients.  One of your peers has asked you to review their design plan (below): Identify the strengths and missed opportunities (gaps) and develop a redesign to better meet the overall goals of the company:

•                Determine whether sales reps have the right skills for capturing requirements

•                Define work processes and tools that sales reps will need to capture

              requirements

•                Design the training 

•                Pilot test the training with local sales reps only

•                Track participant satisfaction with training

•                Track sales rep submission of accurate requirements for software development

Using any of the HPT model(s) as appropriate, your team is to identify a methodology for analysis, use the methodology to evaluate  and analyze the current design for strengths and gaps, create a redesign to address all the necessary requirements to train sales reps, and establish performance measures to evaluate redesign effectiveness and outcomes.

Evaluation Rubric For Wiki Collaboration Project:

	Excellent	Competent	Acceptable	Unacceptable
Identification of the strengths and gaps in the current design	Identifies & understands all of the strengths and gaps in the design	Identifies and understands most of the strengths and gaps in the design	Identifies and understands some of the strengths and gaps in the design	Identifies and understands few of strengths and gaps in the design
Development of a redesign	Insightful & thorough analysis of all the redesign elements	Thorough analysis of most of redesign elements	Superficial analysis of the redesign elements	Incomplete analysis of redesign elements
Development of effective strategies and performance measurements	Well documented and appropriately applied solutions based on course theories and models	Thorough solutions, or proposals for solutions based on course theories and models	Appropriate, well thought out comments about solutions, or proposals for solutions, based on course theories and models	Superficial and/or inappropriate solutions to some of the issues based on course theories and models
Links to Course materials and additional research	Excellent research into the issues with clearly documented links to class readings	Good research and documented links to the material read	Limited research and documented links to any readings	Incomplete research and links to any readings
Collaboration and teamwork	All students contributed to the final project redesign	3 of the four students contributed to the project redesign	2 of the four students contributed to the redesign	One student contributed to the redesign
Presentation of content and logical flow of information	All content is appropriate and information is presented in a clear logical format	Most of the content is appropriate and information is presented in a clear logical format	Some of the content is appropriate and information is presented in a clear logical format	Little of the content is appropriate and information is presented in a clear logical format