This study explores the effectiveness of wikis in a teaching course in teacher formation and its pedagogical implications with the aim of determining whether wikis will influence the learning experiences and the learning out-comes of the students in a middle-income, post-communist country as Albania.
For this, we implemented student-generated wikis into a master’s course on teaching and examined student reflections on their learning outcomes and other pedagogical effects. A mixed method methodology was employed. The findings of the study were informed by triangulating data from the analysis of the student-generated wikis, students’ reflections on the experience, as well as a comparison of the learning outcomes based on the exit exams of this group of students and the group of the prior academic year.
Our data suggest that wikis help support collaborative learning, but at the same time they also encourage independent thinking. Teachers’ authority is minimized, empowering students’ ownership and authorship, leading to a continuous process of modification and improvement through interactions among group members via wikis.
The data present compelling evidence in favor of wikis, as an organic tool to facilitate co-constructed learning which students seem to enjoy.
This study explores the relationship between topic work, as a teaching and learning method based on the philosophy of open classrooms and pupil's motivation. Topic work, as a methodology emerged in our school after 1990's, to support democratization in the relationship between teacher and pupils. Topic work had a stretch in Elbasan's schools for more than 8 years, while this methodology has a long story and has been adopted across European and American schools. In these countries, the method continues to grow in its popularity. In the beginning, this paper will describe the principles of topic work based on literature about this theme, and the role of motivation in the attitude of children towards school. The motivation, likewise is analyzed based on recent findings in the educational psychology field. Comparing the principles of topic work, with elements of motivation especially of intrinsic motivation, it will be concluded that topic work as methodology includes a lot of elements of intrinsic motivation. With the changing of curriculum demands, teachers can rely on this methodology to motivate pupils, to be closer to their needs and closer to recent developments in education policy.
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