Help:Educators Guide

Are you an instructor on a phyisotherapy or physical therapy educational programme? For educators, Physiopedia offers an opportunity to involve their students in this knowledge creation process as part of an educational program.

This guide explains how Physiopedia can be used in teaching and learning and also outlines ideas on how educators could incorporate Physiopedia into the learning activities of their class.

See also the Educators Step by Step Guide, the Educators Application Examples and the Educators FAQs.

What is a wiki

A Wiki is a website that allows any visitor to easily contribute to and edit that website. Wikis are particularly suited to collaborative group authoring of documents and websites. The most famous example of a Wiki is Wikipedia, a very extensive on-line encylopedia that allows anyone to add to and edit its entries.

Wikis in teaching and learning

The nature of wikis means they offer a number benefits relating to learning and teaching applications:

• Wikis are ideal for collaborative writing applications.
• Wikis can be edited and entries published without knowledge of special web development tools.
• A wiki enables the development history of a document to be explored revealing who contributed what and when.
  
• A wiki will never be lost along with the efforts that have been made in adding content to them, they can be continually updated and always be referred to.

Physiopedia in teaching and learning

As a wiki, Physiopedia offers educators an opportunity to involve their students in the creation of this global resource as part of an educational program.  Student involvement in creating, reviewing and updating Physiopedia content is an excellent activity for developing their skills of reflection, critical assessment and writing.

Application examples

• Group assignments. A group of students could be tasked with creating a new Physiopedia article. During and after the authoring process, the article's associated history page allows the tutor to monitor contributions and observe development of the article.
  
• Group debates can be held in the dedicated Talk pages related to each page in the wiki.  Opposing positions can be argued and evidence presented.
  
• Lecture preparation on particular topics can be completed in Physiopedia. Each individual could be assigned with a different topic to research which should then be either edited or added to Physiopedia with supporting evidence.  These can then be viewed by all students, discussed in the lecture and then edited futher if necessary following the lecture.
• Case studies can be added by students as part of an assessment or learning task.  Once added to Physiopedia they will be available for all to view and learn from.
  
• Individual portfolios can be created from an individuals profile page.  The flexible nature of wiki's allows an individual to be very creative in their personal portfolio creation and also allows very flexible portfolio mentoring.

See more examples on the educators application examples page.

Why get involved

• Student involvement in creating, reviewing and updating Physiopedia content is an excellent activity for developing reflection, critical assessment and writing skills. 
• Encouraging students to become actively involved in Physiopedia early in their careers will encourage them to interact professionally with colleagues from the start.
• Being involved from the start hopefully students will continue to contribute content to Physiopedia to assist in the development of the profession in the future.
  

Frequently asked questions

If you are interested in using Physiopedia in your class, check out the educators FAQs first.

Step by step guide

If you have decided to go ahead and use Physiopedia with your students follow our step by step guide that is specifically written to help educators who use Physiopedia as part of their educational program.

Resources

Leeds University have developed an extensive site about using wikis in teaching and learning.