Revolutionary Figures Research: How reliable is Wikipedia?

Students research a figure from the Revolutionary War, whom they select by drawing from a hat.  Their research begins by gathering facts from Wikipedia which they must verify with at least two other sources.  Using time in the school library, students use a variety of approved resources to research their topic and verify facts.  In the event that they find a fact that is incorrect on Wikipedia, they are permitted to correct the site using their research as proof for the correction.  After completing the research, students write a brief report which includes a picture of the subject and a recording of the text in One Note.  As an additional activity, students are asked to evaluate Wikipedia’s accuracy.

TIPC Ratings

Students select their resources from an approved list of resources with the intent of evaluating resources for their accuracy and reliability.  I had some students who decided to research other resources and had to evaluate them.  Some found reliable resources and were successful, while others realized that the information they found was not usable.  This activity did not necessarily require students to solve a “real world problem,” but they were able to evaluate raeal world resources and correct them where they were able.  In addition, it helped students to become aware of the necessity of evaluating resources.  One student, in fact, found that many sites relied on Wikipedia for their information and therefore, were not helpful in his own research.

This lesson falls close to approaching in this category because students did communicate with one another when sharing their final product and during the editing process.  They also were able to communicate more globally through correcting Wikipedia if they found inaccuracies.

This lesson is between developing and approaching on communication and collaboration.  Students were expected to interpret information and evaluate the information they found in order to create an accurate account of their topic’s life. They also had to help one another in editing but higher order thinking questions were not presented to the students.

In this assignment, the focus was research as opposed to creativity. Students had the option of including a variety of pictures, but the desired product was specified as opposed to being open-ended, thus being more of a developing activity in this area.