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.

The initial phase will be completed in the first session this evening. You will explore both the concept of a webquest and examples of it in groups, coming up with good and bad examples of webquests.
Once you understand this model, you may decide to use a Webquest in your teaching, or modify or develop a webquest for your teaching.

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

Bernie Dodge is a Professor of Educational Technology at San Diego State University. His Webquest Page provides excellent resources to learn about webquests. Look especially at the many EXAMPLES he gives and at the TRAINING MATERIALS.
Tom March is also a developer of webquests. His Webquests for Learning page provides answers to the questions Why WebQuests? and What do WebQuests Look Like? and guidance for Designing Your Own WebQuests and Putting Your WebQuest Online
Tom March and others are also responsible for the development of the site Filamentality, which, among other things, allows teachers to develop and publish their own web pages, including webquests.
Bernie Dodge's thinking about webquests has evolved over the last four years. In thr early article, WebQuest, Prof. Dodge distinguished between short term and long term WebQuests. He then provides six critical attributes for WebQuests, 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.
Later Prof. Dodge substituted the idea of Evaluation for Guidance and began thinking about rubric-based evaluation. Two of his more recent articles are given below.

The article on Building Blocks of a WebQuest is excellent, especially since it provides paradigm examples of webquests for each of the six components of a web quest.
A Draft Rubric for Evaluating WebQuests will also give you specific guidance for evaluating webquests by others or ones you have created.

Here is a short list of Web Search Engines. There are hundreds, even thousands of teacher resources called "webquests" out on the web, and the number is increasing every week. Some are excellent, some are little more than on-line worksheets. Use your new found understanding of webquests to search for those which would specifically meet your needs.
WWW Constructivist Project Design Guide. I include this resource because it has an overview and many good resources for the general type of approach that webquests represent, namely on-line lessons in which the teacher primarily facilitates, rather than instructs, and which exhibit cooperative learning in which the students have the primary responsibility for their own learning, including goal-setting, process and evaluation.
Engaged Learning Resources. This list was put up by Bill Weiler on behalf of the Engaged Learning Workshop being currently held at Hillsboro, IL. This particular reference on engaged learning indicators is very useful in giving an overview of engaged learning. Excerpted and summarized from Designing Learning and Technology for Educational Reform, by Beau Fly Jones, Gilbert Valdez, Jeri Nowakowski, and Claudette Rasmussen (NCREL, 1994). Contact info@ncrel.org

Vision of Engaged Learning (Responsible for Learning, Energized by Learning, Strategic, and Collaborative)
Tasks for Engaged Learning (Challenging, Authentic, and Integrative/interdisciplinary)
Assessment of Engaged Learning (Performance-Based, Generative, Interwoven with Curriculum and Instruction, and Equitable Standards)
Instructional Models and Strategies for Engaged Learning (Interactive and Generative)
Learning Context for Engaged Learning (Knowledge-Building Learning Community, Collaborative, Empathetic)
Grouping for Engaged Learning (Heterogeneous, Flexible, Equitable)
Teacher Roles for Engaged Learning (Facilitator, Guide, and Co-Learner and Co-Investigator)
Student Roles for Engaged Learning (Explorer, Cognitive Apprentice, Producers of Knowledge)

Marzano, R. J. (1992) A different kind of classroom: Teaching with dimensions of learning. Alexandria VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, is not available online. Prof. Dodge has used Marzano's model of a classroom in his own thinking. Robert J. Marzano has been a very influential writer in this area.
Monday, March 15 Field 2 class found these webquests to be good ones. See if you can add to the list.

Celebrating Cultures With Tomie dePaola, found at the site WebQuests written by Memphis City Schools teachers
Civil War Gazette found at San Bernardio Schools' Educational Media and Technology site on webquests.
Zelda's Zany Zoo is also at the San Bernardino Schools site on webquests as well as the World of Puppets for K-2.
Create-A-Creature was found at the Bernie Dodge Matrix.

The Process

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.
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.
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.

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.
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.
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.
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.

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.
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:

What is a constructivist approach to learning?
What is engaged learning?
Who is Bernie Dodge?
Who is Tom March?
What are the components of a webquest?
How has the concept of a webquest evolved?
How can I make my own webquest?
Why is a WebQuest, properly designed an example of a constructivist approach to learning or an example of engaged learning?
What are some specific examples of WebQuests? Good examples and bad examples.
Why is a webquest more than an on-line lesson or worksheet?
Are there examples of webquests for every subject and level?
Are webquests more appropriate for some levels or subject than others?
How does one make an effective Internet search?
What is a good search engine to use for finding information on webquests?
Where are the best resources for webquests?
Could you think of ways to improve or modify some of the examples of webquests you have seen?
How could you specifically use this approach in your teaching, given the availability to you of web resources?
Do you know any teachers who could use this approach in their teaching?

Conclusion

We will have a round robin of reports from the work groups.

Modified by Jim Andris on April 8, 1999 jandris@siue.edu