"Real World" Assignments

     There is a push in education to make learning "real world" applicable, yet I think many times we still fall short of that mark because we make learning that "could" be applied to the real world, but the project does not require that component.  The article by Davidson called, "How to go from standard-issue term paper to social change", was an article that responded to and accomplished the task of real-world learning in school assignments.  The professor has the students create wiki pages for under-represented groups as a final project in the class.  This assignment is genius on so many levels.
     The first level of genius that is explicitly discussed in the article is the idea of no professor wanting to grade a paper that a student has hurriedly thrown together the night before it is due.  As a college student, I also know this struggle of managing your time trying not to do projects at the last minute but sometimes it's inevitable.  The assignment of creating a wiki page helps to eliminate this issue because rough drafts of work are not something that will meet the standards of publication to the site.  It also states that the edits are tracked and the professor can see those changes, so it is documented how often and to what extent each document is being changed.
     The next level of genius is that the students are creating a document that will be made public.  I do not believe that there is a college student that does not take more time on an assignment when they know that there will be more than just their professor's eyes looking at it.  It puts far more pressure on the student to engage in something that is high quality.  I find that it is a human quality that we want to present the best portrait of ourselves to the world, and this type of projects forces a student's hand to do just that.  This idea of wanting to put our best work out for the public leads back to the multiple corrections and the time that will be exerted on this type of writing assignment.
     The final level of genius is that it is actual "real world" writing.  It is writing that is done for the world and is public to the world.  It is not a piece of writing that could theoretically be useful to the world, it is useful in the production of the work.  It is something that they can take in pride in because they have made a useful contribution to the world.  They also can use the writing on their resumes for employers to see.
     All of these different levels of genius contribute to the formation of a "real world" assignment that hits the mark on many levels and creates transformational and empowering learning on the part of the student.  The impact of such an assignment will not be forgotten by the student.