When creating computer-based instructional objects the structure of your activity needs to replace hands on guidance from the teacher if you want students to use it independently. So in order to accomplish this I believe you must use some form of scaffolding to allow students to progress their learning in increments. In addition, you need to be able to engage student interest without being there to enforce it.
In order to accomplish these goals, teachers must think about what makes them effective with in-person instruction and script those lessons in great detail. Stand alone instruction should have clear expectations and give clear feedback to student responses. Students should be given access to additional instruction if they need additional help with a subject but should not be required to cover a subject to redundancy if they already understand it.
This is why teachers must learn to predict where students will have trouble, and design outlets for clarification. Teachers must use their knowledge of multiple intelligences and learning types and integrate those concepts into computer-based designs so that the student has a customized learning experience.
Here are some great Social Studies WebQuests that I've discovered:
Jamestown Online Adventure
I really like this WebQuest because it has a strong visual and hands on element with the adventure flash game. Engagement with this activity should be strong because of the game. Students use their prior knowledge of the real Jamestown colony to establish their own colony. Students must decide where they will build their colony, how they will interact with native people, and what food they will produce.
At the end of the the activity students are given an evaluation of their choices, once again by making historical connections to the original colony.
Abraham Lincoln:
Crooked Man or Just a Crooked Bow Tie?
This WebQuest is extremely well organized and is very informative. Students are asked to write a gossip article about Abraham Lincoln. The activity serves as a great biographical exploration of the 16th President. I like how the author defines the roles and responsibility of the reporters in great detail. They also restrict the resource articles to just a handful of select articles. This will help students to avoid being overwhelmed from swimming through 20 plus articles. Students will be more likely to achieve the desired results because the WebQuest is well structured and serves as a great stand alone tool because of it.
I really like this WebQuest because it has a strong visual and hands on element with the adventure flash game. Engagement with this activity should be strong because of the game. Students use their prior knowledge of the real Jamestown colony to establish their own colony. Students must decide where they will build their colony, how they will interact with native people, and what food they will produce.
At the end of the the activity students are given an evaluation of their choices, once again by making historical connections to the original colony.
Crooked Man or Just a Crooked Bow Tie?
This WebQuest is extremely well organized and is very informative. Students are asked to write a gossip article about Abraham Lincoln. The activity serves as a great biographical exploration of the 16th President. I like how the author defines the roles and responsibility of the reporters in great detail. They also restrict the resource articles to just a handful of select articles. This will help students to avoid being overwhelmed from swimming through 20 plus articles. Students will be more likely to achieve the desired results because the WebQuest is well structured and serves as a great stand alone tool because of it.
6 comments:
Jeff - I found the Jamestown quest engaging right from the start. I'm not really a history junky but have been to the real Jamestown. Great choice.
Like the other Jeff, I found the Jamestown quest to be much more engaging. I am a huge history buff, especially when it comes to the Civil War. So I was not a big fan of the Lincoln quest. I mean what is the point? Is it busy work? Where is the purpose?
Well I guess I know what I'm doing with my 8th graders at the start of next year. I love the Jamestown WebQuest. Anytime I can help my students connect with ideas and people from way beofre their time I am happy to give it a shot!
The Lincoln Quest does not have the dynamics of a flash movie, but I think with some modifications it could be amazing.
Basically students are asked to be TMZ and write gossip about Lincoln. Which offers a couple of things: It engages their prior knowledge of how entertainment news works, and it gets them dealing with biographical information of Lincoln.
So while I think it could use more virtual engagement(Maybe a gossip blog rather than a paper?), I wouldn't call it busy work.
I strongly agree with your comment to the main discussion point about predicting studnet questions while designing the independent computer based instruction lessons. My question is how will you be able to quickly and effectively guess what type of questions you will have? Do you plan on giving someone a test run through the lesson with the intent of developing as many questions as possible? That way you can revisit the lesson and create these additional resource outlets where students can seek out answers to those anticipated problems.
exactly.
I think you can do some of the rough predicting during the design process just through experience with kids. But obviously you'll need to do as many trial runs as possible with students, colleagues, and pretty much anyone you can get to try it out.
Then when you've used it one year, reflect on what you'll do for the next year as we do with every lesson.
Now that you brought this up, it makes me think of the lack of revisions/updates to the quests we've looked at thus far.
Seems like a one and done process.
Much like everything in education, WebQuests will not be effective if they arn't living things that grow with time. It's like these teachers designed the lessons as a novelty rather than something they wanted to revisit over and over.
Thanks everyone for the feedback. It's appreciated!
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