Webquests

What happens when students who are used to completing knowledge acquisition tasks turn to the Web as a source for information? Something like this question arose in 1994 as San Diego State University’s Department of Education became networked to the World Wide Web. The poor websites of the time led to the copy and paste memory.

This is what brought to Web quests

Now what is a web quest? A web quest is a scaffolded learning structure that uses links to essential resources on the internet, that motivates students investigations of an open ended question, individual expertise and participation in a group process. Web quests inspire children students to reflect on their met acognitive processes. March points out what makes a webquest and these include a scaffolding structure that encourages student motivation and facilitates advanced thinking. A great webquest should ultimately not give the answer but allow children multiple ways of children gaining the answer but it should allow students to reflect on the answer. Webquests should also provide open ended questioning this allows students to develop their higher order thinking and allows them to understand not only the answer but also the question. Webquests also provide collaboration a true learning source here children can work together and bounce off each others ideas and also learn from each other. The true power of these web quests is motivation, this independent yet some what guided learning allows children to explore the task and explore their answers freely, this analyzing of information not only means that children are applying their knowledge but they are refining their research skills.

Webquests break the form of “teacher centered learning” and drive the process to what every teacher aims to have in their classroom and that is a ‘learning centered environment” when a teacher can successfully create a classroom that allows children to freely explore and interact with the information, it is then that true learning will take place. Webquests are powerful in creating thinking because the answer can not just be copy and pasted a true webquest prompts children to use higher order thinking skills and apply them to the question.

One of the main components of webquests is scaffolding webquests provide students with

activities that help students develop the right mindset, engage students with the problem, divide activities into manageable tasks, and direct students’ attention to essential aspects of the learning goals.