WebQuest Design Project Step 2

Tasks: The most critical part of any WebQuest is the Task description. This section simply describes what you want the learner to have accomplished by the time they have finished the lesson. Don't include the intermediate steps that lead to accomplishing the Task. Those will end up in the Process section. The Task description will be short, but it will represent the results of higher level thinking. It should be written in the second person and in language accessible to your targeted learners. That is, address the learner as you rather than talking about them as: the learners will... * Remember, the written description of the end/culminating product must describe clearly the goal of the webquest. Task should require synthesis of multiple sources of information (transformative thinking) and it should be highly creative, going beyond memorization, and engaging. In addition, the task should be realistic, doable, and appropriate to the developmental level and other individual differences (age, social/culture, and individual differences) of students with whom the webquest will be used.

Process: The Process section comes closest to looking like a traditional lesson plan. It spells out step by step what the learners will do, how they'll interact with you, each other, and with information. This is where you take advantage of your knowledge of how to craft collaborative work. Do you assign roles? Do you jigsaw it? This is where you'll grapple with those questions. Remember that you are addressing the students directly in this section since it appears in the Student Page. Use 'you will' rather than 'the learners will'. The Process is the section that will take the longest to develop, since it is here that you'll intersperse relevant online resources for learners to use. Finding good resources takes time. There are three phases to the process. In Phase 1, you provide learners with the information they'll need to perform the task. You may want to have everyone reading one set of pages, and then break them into groups with separate roles, each with a different set of links to look at. In Phase 2 of the Process, the thinking work takes place. Your students have now examined the information and now they need to transform it in some way. Here is where they play with ideas, make decisions, and so on. In the last Phase of the Process, learners actually produce something that reflects the thinking they did in Phase 2. They may be writing a position paper, preparing a debate, creating a model... the end result was described in the Task section and might take many forms. Will they need help in producing this result? You might want to provide some writing prompts or other forms of guidance to help them act more skilled than they presently are. * Remember, if possible, Process page should be divided into sections or pages where each group/team or student would know exactly where they were in the process and what to do next. Every step should be clearly stated. Activities should be clearly related and designed from basic knowledge to higher level thinking. Also, ensure that different roles are assigned to help students understand different perspectives and/or share responsibility in accomplishing the task.

Evaluation Description: This section describes the evaluation criteria needed to meet performance and content standards. Describe to the learners how their performance will be evaluated. When you assign a 3-page research report, chances are you have a pretty good idea of how to grade it. Your learners, too, have probably figured out what you're looking for. But how do you grade a persuasive letter to a Senator, a skit portraying civil disobedience, a design for a new playground, or a poem about global warming? For your sake and for those you teach, you need to figure out how to tell great from good from gruesome and communicate that well. There are many tools available at ZUNAL for evaluating students' learning. You can create a quiz, rubric, google map activity, faq, project evaluation report or a game activity. You can include them all if you want (some tools might require account upgrade). However, whatever the tools you chose, you need to explain clearly what the process for the evaluation is. Use the textbox above to include your evaluation description/criteria, and add the tools to your webquest aftwerwards. * Remember, on this page, criteria for success should be clearly stated and webquest should apply multiple assessment strategies (use of rubric or checklist, reflection of project, pre-post assessments, quiz etc.). There should be strong connection between the learning goals and standards to be accomplished at the end of webquest and evaluation process. The evaluation instrument should clearly measure what students must know and be able to do to accomplish the task.

Conclusion: The Conclusion section serves two purposes. First, obviously, it brings the lesson to a close. Ask the learners to reflect back on what they learned and about their own process of learning. If there's a bottom line to the topic, this is a good place to put it. A second purpose for the conclusion is to look ahead. There will always be someone in the room whose interest was piqued by this lesson and is eager to learn more. In developing the WebQuest you probably found more good links than you had time to use. This is a good place to put them. In effect you'll be saying, 'That's all the time we have for this topic, but if you'd like to pursue it more on your own check these resources out.' What better way to encourage self-directed lifelong learning? The Conclusion, logically enough, appears as the last section of the Student Page, so it should be written in student-friendly language.

Teacher Page: This section is not, as you might have thought, the place where you, teacher, introduce yourself. Instead, this is just a short but interesting overview aimed at your fellow educators. Just as with the students, you need to hook the teacher, too, so use this as a place to express your enthusiasm for what you've put together for them. In this page, you are expected to list the curriculum standards your webquest covers, additional resources if needed, credits for the resources you used in your webquest and any other information a teacher should now. Curriculum Standards What will students learn as a result of this lesson? Describe the outcomes succinctly. Use the language of existing standards. For example: Social Studies Standards Addressed

· Recognize the relationships among the various parts of a nation's cultural life.

· Learn about the mythology, legends, values and beliefs of a people.

Remember, common core curriculum standard(s) should be listed in words, not only numbers, and they should be relevant and they should be linked back to the standards website. Most lessons don't just teach a block of content; they also implicitly teach one or more types of thinking. In addition to describing learning outcomes within traditional subject areas, describe what kind of thinking and communications skills were encouraged by this lesson. Inference-making? Critical thinking? Creative production? Creative problem-solving? Observation and categorization? Comparison? Teamwork? Compromise? Credits Your WebQuest is probably built on the works of others at least to some extent. This is the section in which you tip your hat to them. Were there particular websites, books or people who helped you line up the content or produce the lesson? Did you make use of images (with permission) from other sites? Want to thank the instructor or workshop leader who guided you in your WebQuest creation? Or cite the class where you learned how to do it? Mention them here, along with appropriate links so that others can follow your wisdom back to its roots. NOTE: Don't include a list a bunch of URLs you used within the WebQuest. You do not need to list them. In addition to your fabulous web pages, what else would a teacher need to implement this WebQuest? A class set of books? Access to an expert by phone or email? Special software or other tools? Other Teachers need to know how long this WebQuest might take and different ways to offer it depending on equipment availability, etc. Use this space to tell them how to pull this off and adapt it to different circumstances. The more detail you provide, the more useful this is to other teachers