Crowdsourcing

I read "Crowdsourcing and self-instruction: Turning the production of teaching material into a learning objective" as one of my choices in the Choose Your Own Adventure series for class this week. I poked my head into the other articles in that section, but honestly fell asleep while trying to read them! This article was able to keep my attention! I always enjoy learning about creative ways to engage students in their learning. 

I've heard about crowdsourcing before, but I never thought of using it in the way that was described in this article. Crowdsourcing is the practice of acquiring information or task inputs from a large number of people. I usually think of crowdsourcing related to my social media communities. One of my communities is for homeschool moms and at least once a week there will be a mom posting that she is in search of a specific book for a lesson. Inevitably, one of the other moms has it sitting on a shelf, collecting dust and is more than happy to pass it along. I especially love the crowdsourcing posts that are trying to reunite a lost teddy bear with its owner or a newly engaged couple is relieved that someone found the ring that was dropped the ring in the sand during the most romantic proposal. 

 In case you didn't read this one, it was about a professor who had his students design learning materials that would be used in a future class. The students conducted guided research individually and then worked collaboratively to produce a timeline of events for one Latin-American country, resulting in a collection of historical outlines. The instructor was a bit surprised to discover that there was more educational value in researching and preparing the materials than he initially realized. The students were engaged and commented on how much they enjoyed the process, much more so than if they had been asked to write a traditional paper. It makes sense really, the best way to learn something is to teach it! In fact, this worked so well another professor in his department tried it with a little modification and it was equally as successful. 

 I really love the idea of getting students involved, as stated in the abstract of the article, this makes students both producers and users of the content. 

 Wilson, M. C. (2018). Crowdsourcing and self-instruction: Turning the production of teaching materials Into a learning objective. Journal of Political Science Education, 14(3), 400-408. doi:10.1080/15512169.2017.1415813