Chapter 4: A Design Model of Harnessing Wiki for Collaborative Problem-Based Instruction in Higher Education

Problem-based instruction (PBI) is an educational practice in which students, usually working in teams, actively resolve complex problems in realistic situations (Savin-Baden & Major, 2004). In recent years, higher education has seen an increasing emphasis on providing opportunities for students to enhance problem-solving and critical-thinking skills through working and collaborating in groups. In addition, the paradigm for higher education has shifted from lecture-based instruction to active and constructive learning due to a greater institutional focus on the quality of students’ learning experiences. This shift has also placed pronounced emphasis on the use of instructional technology to promote various learning processes including PBI (Barr & Tagg, 1995). Wiki, a Hawaiian word meaning quick, in particular, separates itself from other emerging technologies with its many unique features including collaborative and asynchronous authoring of contents, easy display of editing history, and so on. Despite the fact that wiki has been increasingly used for collaborative problem-solving as indicated by the literature, it is still not clear how wiki has been employed to facilitate problem-based instruction in higher education and what the design implications are from these implementations. The purpose of this chapter is to review the studies that engaged students in wiki-supported PBI, to examine the design considerations of using wiki for PBI, and to suggest effective instructional strategies for the design and implementation of PBI using this collaborative technology tool.