A WebQuest is an inquiry-oriented activity that is self-contained on the web. Professors and instructors in higher education are creating opportunities for their students by combining technology with inquiry-based learning. This arouses excitement, curiosity, as well as active participation and student-decision making in the learning process which subsequently provides educators with an often much needed change. Professors and instructors have discovered that WebQuest can be modified from the traditional text-format and turned into multimedia activities. In so doing, opportunities for students to interact with the course material, themselves, and their instructors are naturally created. If you teach in higher education, or even lower grades, and you are looking for a change this article will explain to you the importance of and how to create a text-based or multimedia WebQuest.
The Importance of WebQuest
WebQuest bring together the most effective instructional practices into one activity, including:
- Student Motivation -- Students who participate in WebQuest are often more motivated because they are engaged in trying to understand or solve real-world problems, helping students assume ownership in their learning. Students become more motivated when they have opportunities to use authentic resources rather than outdated textbooks and library resources; have access to experts; can explore a range of current documents and reports; search a variety of databases and relevant material; and, have the opportunity to make choices and decisions in the learning process.
- Authentic Learning -- WebQuest often pose authentic situations and provide opportunities for students to role play. Students' work together by role playing others in the community and sharing in their beliefs, opinions, and values in an effort to understand or solve a given problem. Students who are faced with understanding or solving an authentic task in school have their learning validated; rather than many of those students who work on isolated skills and facts and see learning as disjointed from the real world. An example of this might be to have students role play being scientists, environmentalists, land developers, city council members, and consumers to determine alternative solutions to the deforestation and effects on a community that is rapidly growing and expanding.
- Developing Thinking Skills -- WebQuest are based on the strategies of cognitive psychology and constructivism and pose questions to students that cannot be simply answered through rote rehearsal and memorization. Students are required to dissect the task and attack sub-tasks sifting through information, thereby facilitating deeper and more advanced thinking that connects to prior knowledge. These new connections can be strengthened when the topic is encountered again in the future.
- Cooperative Learning -- A WebQuest naturally creates cooperative learning opportunities. WebQuest creates opportunities for learning about complex subjects, making it impossible for every student to know about or master every aspect of the given situation.
- Respecting Diversity -- The WebQuest provides a natural setting for promoting respect for diversity. Groups of students naturally vary in gender, race, ethnicity, socio-economic status, and religious beliefs. Working together students sift through complex information and encounter opinions from others as well as among their own group members in an effort to work together to facilitate a deeper and more advanced understanding about the topic. By sifting through complex information as well as diverse opinions, connections to their prior knowledge not only builds new connections that can be strengthened later but diverse opinions and new ways of understanding and knowing are brought to the forefront, and similarities and differences aid in understanding and solving the problem.
- Alternative Assessment -- As students complete their WebQuest there may be many different answers to the same problem and rationales that accompany the different answers. Alternative assessment measures other than the traditional paper/pencil test are often more effective in understanding students' thought processes and conclusions. Alternative assessment measures may include students presenting their conclusions in a speech, debate, PowerPoint presentation, poster presentation, video tape, audio tape, or even a multimedia presentation.
In part of the teacher in learning, if the teacher is out or have an appointment to do, the student can do alone. The teacher will hav'nt hard time to make a lesson plan at all but its up to him/her to make for their compliance. The teacher have a least time to work because some references are available here. If the teacher use it in the classroom, it can help build a solid foundation that prepares them for the future.
In my own perception, yes, it would be applicable in our country not only for the student and teachers but also for the parents and adult. Individuals will move through several careers in the course of a lifetime.The amount of information available to everyone will grow at an accelerating pace; much of it will come directly from a growing number of sources without filtering or verification.
