How can we design lessons that stimulate student inquiry?
Preface
Hey team!
Looking over each group's wiki, I see there is some confusion concerning what I am looking for in the 'ERIC Abstract' section. Summaries of your ERIC articles, not your lesson plan, is what you should be pouring into that space. Writing research article summaries helps organize materials that will be built into the lesson, and to have a reference point, dans la futur, when new assignments occupy the field.
This second purpose of summarizing articles is something I realized the hard way, and I am offering my trials and tribulations to all of you, to save you from the errors of my own life. Many times I have been assigned the task to design a module with various specifications, and, as I developed the curriculum, a flash of memory occupied my mind, recalling me to a place where, sitting a table, I read an article satisfying the specifications of my current writing task. And then the burning question: "where did I read that ... "? I can assure you, my friends, bumbling and stumbling through stacks of paper, seeking the answer never works. Having a conveniently located list of summaries is the best way to answer the question, and, once you develop that productive work habit, I assure you, you will never go back to dumping your research into a pile of processed dead trees, never to see the light of day again.
I put together the following summaries in hour, as an example of what to pour into that wiki space.
LoParrino, Camille A. (2005). A Transformational Process: Facilitating WebQuests (ED 490 748)
A "Day in the Life..." of a Bronx student teacher, likely seeking to bridge the digital divide, developed a WebQuest about Monarch Butterflies with the help of her Fordham U mentor. Elementary students from P.S. 83 in the Bronx chose one of three roles: Researchers, Scientists, and Dieticians. This paper offers a step by step process for developing a WebQuest.
Chatel, R. & Nodell, J. (2002) WebQuests: Teachers and Students as Global Literacy Explorers. (ED 471 843)
These teachers have produced a gold mine of on-line tools to help teacher create WebQuests, including excellent descriptive rubrics.
Young, D. & Wilson, D. (2002). WebQuests for Reflection and Conceptual Change: Variations on a Popular Model for Guided Inquiry. (ED 477 112)
Describes the structure of a WebQuest. The paper links WebQuest activities to a broader, schema-based approach to learning. By linking WebQuest activities to the STAR Legacy model, the authors demonstrate how these types of research are student-centered, and enhance instructional delivery.
Schweizer, Heidi; Kossow, Ben. (2007) WebQuests: Tools for Differentiation. Gifted Child Today, v30 n1 p29-35 Win 2007 (EJ 750 569)
The article takes a long time to download, but is very informative. WebQuests are ideal for differentiated instruction, and the article describes an example of this form of instruction in a Gettysburg WebQuest. Like most of the articles, it breaks the WebQuest down into its various stages, and has a good bibliography. Although it focuses on gifted students, a lot can be taken away for other classroom settings.
I've inserted some comments (in red) for each group's wiki writing so far.
So let's take our Practicum II experiences to the next level, and integrate WebQuests into our unit plans.
WebQuests
Escaping the dusky textbook
So far, we've looked at online educational resources and the nature of "educational social software." Blogs and wikis are by far the most common ESSs used by teachers today. Another genre predates the ubiquitous Web 2.0, the WebQuest. It dates way back to the 1990s, a time when Kathy Schrock owned the educational Internet. What is a WebQuest? Here's a definition:
A WebQuest is an inquiry-oriented activity, where some or all of the material a student interacts with comes from the resources on the Internet. WebQuests eliminate the need for a student to search, sometimes endlessly for information on a topic, since prescreened links are provided in the WebQuest. Another benefit to using WebQuests is that they are easily created and support any curriculum topic. They are motivating and highly interactive, allowing students to use real life resources that are up to date.WNET has an excellent online workshop about WebQuests. You might even be able to get professional credits for viewing it.
Educators need to view the WebQuest in two ways: how to design and evaluate it, the other is what each step of a WebQuest will look like to a student. Let's look at the final product first.
Instead of writing traditional text with links to click on, WebQuests are decidedly nonlinear, and take a constructivist approach to learning. Usually, the quest is divided in the following sections:
Students typically complete WebQuests in cooperative groups. Each student in each group has a specific research role. Let's jump into one, and see how they work.
Each of you will take on a role, and evaluate a handful of WebQuests. Once everyone on the group has evaluated each WebQuest, based upon their persona, your group will collectively evaluate each WebQuest.
Creating online inquiry
Framing student exploration
So we're back at the main issue of this colloquium: how to create educational writings that aren't like dusty books, that are more than static lists of information. Creating a storyline line for students to move back and forth through, allows students to learn at their own pace, a hallmark of differentiated instruction. Students searching out what they are specifically interested in, while keeping the focus and objectives of the online research intact is the goal of any successful WebQuest.
Building a WebQuest is easier than you may think. It's important to gather all the materials you want to include in the online lesson before you organize it into the above steps. Here are some additional resources to help you craft your WebQuest:
- Bernie Dodge's WebQuest Resources
- A Road Map for Designing WebQuests
- Writing WebQuests for the Classroom
- WebQuest Resources
- Filiamentality
- Zunal
- Today's cutting edge is the Virtual Quest, sited at Second Life's Education Island
Evaluation
Homework #3
Let's recap what we've done, or should have done, by now:- Each group searched ERIC for relevant education articles (and APA citations) that relate to their lesson plan.
- Each group uploaded their content area, relevant standards, Aim, ERIC summaries/citations to their wiki page.
- Each group found 3-6 Internet lesson plans/Websites similar to their own lesson plan, and uploaded their results and summaries to their wiki page.
- Each group completed the Blog WebQuest and uploaded their answers to their wiki page.
- Each student posted a comment to this blog, identifying 3 kinds of ESS software listed in the "7 Things You Should Know About..." resource, and describing how you might implement them in your classroom.
Deliverable #1: Each group will use the materials they have gathered so far to develop a WebQuest. To do so, please follow the below steps:
- Search for Web-based content that applies to your lesson plan (please use more than Google).
- Organize the Introduction, Task, Process, Evaluation, Conclusion, and Teacher Page from your Internet materials, using one of the following templates if it helps.
- Use an online resource to generate your WebQuest. The best free one is filamentality, another one is Quests 2 Teach. If you prefer to save your WebQuest to disk, you can use aclearn.net, seneca, or teach-nology.
- As an alternative to #3, I am beta testing Quest Garden to see if I should fork over the $10/year subscription fee so my classes can use its services. We have until November 8 to use the trial membership, so I'd like you to upload your WebQuests to that service by that time. If your group can't get the WebQuest finished by that time, then follow the instructions for #3.
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