WebQuest Assignment
You will be creating a WebQuest on a topic related to your major or concentration. The task is to design a 1-2 day WebQuest for 5th graders if you majoring in elementary education, or for 10th graders if you are in secondary education.
A WebQuest engages students in one or more tasks that promote learning and critical thinking. An effective WebQuest should also be designed to accomplish a subject matter standard. Use of the Internet and, in some cases, presentation software or other presentation techniques, is part of a good WebQuest. It may include sites to visit, questions to answer, tasks to complete - it is detailed and designed as "individualized learning." This means a teacher cannot assume "knowledge or skills." You must teach essential skills needed to complete the WebQuest as part of the WebQuest.
For this assignment, you will design a WebQuest that will take no more than two days to complete. It must address a subject matter standard (as outlined by the State Dept. of Education), and help students learn more about the topic through critical thinking and problem-solving. A WebQuest Project Proposal must be completed and approved by course instructors.
Before you begin creating your WebQuest pages, make sure to read the WebQuest Instruction Sheet, which gives you specific directions for naming the files in your project.
Why WebQuests?
Bernie Dodge, an early innovator of webquests from San Diego State University, and colleague Tom March discuss the benefits of using WebQuests to enhance student learning at EducationWorld.
Now, visit two of the following sites to review a variety of webquests within our disciplines. WebQuest Sites. This will help you better understand how to develop a webquest. Then visit WebQuest.org and click on "Find WebQuests" (left margin) and then scroll down to "Select Subjects" and find your major or core concentration. Pick a grade level of interest and review two webquests that you find.
After reviewing some of the examples of webquests, let's learn more about foundations for creating one. Let's review the possible Tasks upon which a great webquest might be developed.
Next, we will review some of the parts of a webquest. This website will give us more detail about each Part of a webquest as described below:
FORMAT for your webquest: 80 points
Title Page for the Web Quest
Put the Title of the Lesson Here
A WebQuest for 10th Grade (Put Subject Here)
Designed by
(Put Your Names Here)
(Put Your E-mail Addresses Here)
(Put the Subject Matter Standard/Benchmark here)
(Put some interesting graphic representing the content here)
INTRODUCTION to the WebQuest
This document should be written with the student as the intended audience. Write a short paragraph here to introduce the activity or lesson to the students. If there is a role or scenario involved (e.g., "You are a detective trying to identify the mysterious poet.") then here is where you'll set the stage. If there's no motivational intro like that, use this section to provide a short advance organizer or overview. Remember that the purpose of this section is to both prepare and hook the reader.
It is also in this section that you'll communicate the Big Question (Essential Question, Guiding Question) that the whole WebQuest is centered around.
TASKS
Describe crisply and clearly what the end result of the learners' activities will be. The task could be a:
- retelling task, which asks students to absorb information and demonstrate understanding
- compilation task, which transforms a variety of information into a common format
- mystery task, which requires sythesis of information that is wrapped up in a puzzle or mystery
- journalistic task, which centers around a specific event and reporting about it
- design task, which requires the learner to create a product or plan of action
- creative product task, which lead to the production of something within a given creative format, such as painting, game, skit
- consensus building task, which allow learners to articulate, consider and accomodate differing viewpoints
- persuasion task, which requires the learner to develop a convincing case to persuade others to agree with their point of view
- self-knowledge task, which guides the learner to develop a greater understanding of oneself
- analytical task, which look at analysis and implications of a particular topic or event
- judgment task, which asks the learner to rank items based on an informed decision
- scientific task, which asks the learner to make a hypothesis, design a testing process, collect data, and make conclusions about the hypothesis based on the data
If the final product involves using some tool (e.g., MS Word, the Web, iMovie, etc.), mention it here.
Don't list the steps that students will go through to get to the end point. That belongs in the Process section.
PROCESS
To accomplish the task, what steps should the learners go through? Use the numbered list format in your web editor to automatically number the steps in the procedure. Describing this section well will help other teachers to see how your lesson flows and how they might adapt it for their own use, so the more detail and care you put into this, the better. Remember that this whole document is addressed to the student, however, so describe the steps using the second person.
- First you'll be assigned to a team of 3 students...
- Once you've picked a role to play....
- ... and so on.
Learners will access the online resources that you've identifed as they go through the Process. You may have a set of links that everyone looks at as a way of developing background information, or not. If you break learners into groups, embed the links that each group will look at within the description of that stage of the process. You will not give questions and tell students to go find resources!
In the Process block, you might also provide some guidance on how to organize the information gathered. This advice could suggest to use flowcharts, summary tables, concept maps, or other organizing structures. The advice could also take the form of a checklist of questions to analyze the information with, or things to notice or think about. If you have identified or prepared guide documents on the Web that cover specific skills needed for this lesson (e.g. how to brainstorm, how to prepare to interview an expert), link them to this section.
EVALUATION
Visit the following site for advice on developing a rubric.
Your rubric should include an appropriate number of dimensions and types of dimensions. Dimensions should be clearly and concisely written and put into a table. Describe to the learners how their performance will be evaluated. Specify whether there will be a common grade for group work vs. individual grades. Create a rubric table to describe the level of student mastery relative to each dimension of learning included within the webquest.
Level of Learning and Dimension/What will be Evaluated
| Level | Dimensions |
| level 1-Beginning Level of Learning | 1-4 here |
| level 2-Developing Level | 1-4 here |
| level 3-Accomplished Level | etc. |
| level 4-Thorough Mastery Level | etc. |
| SCORE | (# here) |
*Include 4-5 identifiable characteristics of learning that a teacher can use to assess level of mastery for each level.
CONCLUSION
Put a couple of sentences here that summarize what they will have accomplished or learned by completing this activity or lesson. You might also include some rhetorical questions or additional links to encourage students to extend their thinking into other content beyond this lesson.
REFERENCES
Include any books you used, web sites used, sources of graphics, and so on. Use APA bibliographic format.
THE NEXT STEP...
IDEAS AND WEBQUEST RESOURCES
By visiting these sites and talking with a member of the GAC Education Department (names noted on the WebQuest Proposal Form), you will come up with some great ideas about open-ended questions and topics for the WebQuest you will develop in this course. Be very sure that you do not use or review any other WebQuest on the topic or question you select! This would be unethical and violate the Honor Code of GAC.
IDEA GATHERING...
Ideas for WebQuest Topics
Concept to Classroom
Readings and WebQuest Training Materials
(a great site with lots of ideas about WebQuests)
Education World
(fantastic site we will also reference in our class discussion)