Tuesday, June 15, 2010
WebQuests - Students as Investigators!
A WebQuest as the term implies is a web-based, inquiry-oriented activity with the aim to guide students in online learning. During the scholastic year most of us give students either projects or assignments to be worked in groups.
The use of WebQuests will help students to work in groups more effectively. The main objective of the activity is to promote critical thinking and ‘transformative’ learning outcomes, accomplished through the reading, analysis, and synthesis of web-based information. In fact a good advantage in using WebQuests is that students need to use more their thinking abilities and are required to compare, contrast, make decisions and recommendations accordingly. Therefore they cannot lean on a quick cut and paste for their answers.
Here are two WebQuest examples:
http://questgarden.com/104/96/8/100612112623/index.htm
http://questgarden.com/80/56/4/090414191926/index.htm
If WebQuest is structured properly then students will learn through discovery. This higher level of thinking is what we teachers are striving for all students to achieve. Therefore, when students participate in WebQuests they will learn to search effectively, evaluate what they find, and put it to use.
Through my experience and what my colleagues say it seems that most of our students do not actually know how to conduct a proper research. WebQuest provides a guided research. Therefore we teachers can help students to improve their research skills by the use of WebQuests.
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WebQuests have captured my attention and seem to be particularly interesting to use with groups of students and to encourage the use of the web for projects. It would also be beneficial for our students to be using the information rather than spending too much time looking for it. WebQuests lend themselves well to open-ended questions which require creative thinking and which, as suggested above, is what we lecturers are striving to achieve from our students. It is well enough for our students to paraphrase given information, it would be even better to get them to filter and interpret information whilst promoting collaboration. http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class/webquests/index_sub1.html has been very useful in highlighting the uses and features of webquests and very importantly identifies the importance of implementing such tools in class mainly due to the fact that eventually these students as workforce will be working in teams and secondly as citizens, certain issues could have multiple interpretations. In this way, learning will not just relate to the subject at hand such as Maths or English but also related to life skills in general which is what education should also be about.
ReplyDeleteI found this online teacher resources website. One of the resources is a simple webquest builder. You can find it here: http://www.teach-nology.com/web_tools/web_quest/
ReplyDeleteBulding a simple webquest is quite easy:
1. Select a subject, title and image for your webquest.
2. Fill in the contents of the webquest:
- Introduction
The introduction is a means of providing the students with background information that is intended to be a springboard for them to begin the process of inquiry.
- Task
In most cases, a single question is posed that requires students to analyze a vast array of information.
- Process
In this section, the teacher leads the student through the task. The teacher offers advice on how to manage time, collect data, and provides strategies for working in group situations.
- Resources
Students are provided with tools (usually web sites), or leads to tools that can help them complete the task. In order for this to be valuable, a teacher must thoroughly review each source.
- Evaluation
The outcome for Web Quests is usually a product, in most cases, in form of a written/oral report or multimedia presentation.
- Conclusion
Effective Web Quests have a built in mechanism for student reflections. To receive feedback, you can survey your students about their experience, or have the students send you an e-mail sharing their thoughts.
I think it is very interesting to try and conduct an inquiry oriented lecture, where not all the information is given to the students but they have to provide some of the knowledge about the subject themselves.
ReplyDeleteI think that web quest will help to develop the creativity and self expression of the students hence increasing their intrinsic motivation. Creativity will help the students to solve problems in new and innovative ways.
Other advantages in using web quest include:
1. Putting the power of the web behind the topic being discussed in class. The students are given the possibility to ‘discover’ from themselves rather then just listening to the teacher talking about a specific subject.
2. Web quest gives the possibility to students to work at their own pace either individually or as a team.
3. Web quests can increase the ‘comfort level’ of the students using the internet for learning activities. This will help the students become creative researchers, rather than using the internet only for ‘surfing’ from one site to another.
I find webquests a good means of improving students’ analysis and evaluation skills. In my opinion they may be used as a means to channel students’ effort to practice their learnt knowledge in an enjoyable and interactive manner.
ReplyDeleteThe different roles enable learners to gain proficiency in various subject areas. Webquests may assist students in gaining problem solving skills through conclusions and recommendations they would need to develop. Such skills are important to help students take responsibility for their own learning.
Webquests are an enquiry-oriented activity that uses at least some internet resources. Instead of asking the students, for example, to research about a topic, and let them trawl amongst a mountain of very irrelevant sites, or even worse directing students to only one particular site, the WebQuests provide directed learning, by using a number of sites as sources of information. Internet shows that there are hundreds of ready-made WebQuests online, most of them made by teachers for almost every subject. These could be used by teachers everywhere. Such WebQuests can also be edited to suit particular needs.
ReplyDeleteWebQuests are beneficial due to the fact that it provide opportunities for cooperative and collaborative group work. Obviously, they have been proven to be highly motivational and authentic in their learning approach. An important aspect is the fact that they allow students to be critical, creative and achieve higher thinking skills. While having clearly defined objectives, such technique will have appropriate links included and adapt to fit the students’ needs.