WebQuest as a Constructivist Tool

Introduction

In the state of Illinois, the concept of "engaged learning" has been strongly emphasized recently. Here is an opportunity for you to learn about one very good example of an engaged learning strategy: the webquest. A webquest is a lesson plan, often on-line, that structures cooperative learning groups to work on and solve a problem by completing a task. The teacher's role is that of facilitator of group process.

The Task

This is a webquest that could take from 2 to 12 hours depending on whether you decide to develop a webquest of your own. In groups of at least four, each person will adopt one of these for roles: theoretician, historian, curriculum specialist, and resource person. The theoretician and historian will work together as one sub-team, and the curriculum specialist and resource person will work together as another sub team. You will find specific directions for each of the four roles in the Process Section below. Your team will share what you have learned and develop a set of recommendations.
 

Webquest Information Sources

The Process

  1. Your first step is to form teams of at least four persons to work in. Try to get one person to represent each of the four roles. Discuss your role with the others in your group, to make sure you have a common understanding of what you are trying to do.
  2. Next, in your teams, make sure that you know how to bookmark sites. Bookmark this page so you can easily get back to it, and also bookmark any website that you think is important to help you do your work.
  3. Work separately for at least part of the time, making sure you have the ability to work on your own also, but come back into your team and compare and contrast what you have found.
    1. Theoreticians. You are trying to come up with a good understanding of what a webquest is and why it is a good engaged learning strategy. You also show good and bad examples of webquests and explain why. The focus here is not on your definition so much as on a good theoretical understanding of this concept.
    2. Historians. You are trying to understand how the concept of webquest originated and how it changed over the period of time since it has been developed. Who were the major people involved, what did they do, what were their successes and failures, and what are some of the newer developments.
    3. Curriculum specialist. You are trying to find a lot of good examples of webquests that can be used at various levels and for various subject matters. Try to think of all the different teachers you know who could use this or that webquest or who could develop a similar one.
    4. Resource person. Your job is to begin searching the web. You should have some searching skills to start with. See if you can come up with good and bad examples of webquests, or other articles on webquests or engaged learning that are not provided in the resources. You can also assist the other persons in their deliberations.
  4. Back in your whole group, take turns explaining to the others what you have learned about the theory, the history, the fit between webquests and curriculum and any extra online resources. Make sure that you leave this discussion benefitting from the separate inquiry of all of your group partners.
  5. Alternative 1. As a committee, prepare a short set of recommendations for the use of webquests by your school or school district. Select one person of your group to report these recommendations to the class. Alternative 2. As a committee, or in appropriate groups, begin to prepare a webquest for actual use in a classroom.

Guidance

A very good way to organize the information you have come up with in generating yor example is to follow the structure that Prof. Dodge provides and that has provided the structure for the information on this page using the categories of an introduction that sets the stage, a task that is doable and interesting, a set of information sources needed to complete the task, a description of the process the learners should go through in accomplishing the task, some guidance on how to organize the information acquired, and a conclusion.

Some other questions that you might want to have answers to:

Conclusion

We will have a round robin of reports from the work groups.
 
 
Modified by Jim Andris on April 8, 1999 jandris@siue.edu