I first taught with Wikipedia in Winter 2024 as part of my Geographies of Energy and Sustainability class. Perhaps this was a teensy bit ambitious, given that it was both my first time teaching this course, and my first year teaching at University of Washington with four other new class preps. (Seriously, what was I thinking?)
I was immediately drawn to the idea of a Wikipedia project as a form of authentic assessment, where students engage real-world tasks that require and inherently embed content knowledge, research and writing skills, and analytical thinking. Rather than writing a paper that will never again see the light of day after I grade it, students publish their work on the world’s foremost online encyclopedia. It’s hard to think of a more real-world task than that!
Visit Wiki Education for the full blog post! Professor Sneegas will next teach GEOG 473 Geographies of Energy and Sustainability in Winter 2025.