WEBQUESTS: QUALITY LEARNING EXPERIENCES BASED ON CONSTRUCTIVIST LEARNING THEORY. Principles of Learning for Instructional Technologies LT712

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1 WEBQUESTS: QUALITY LEARNING EXPERIENCES BASED ON CONSTRUCTIVIST LEARNING THEORY Principles of Learning for Instructional Technologies LT712 Judy Sweetman

2 2 The purpose of this paper is to define and defend WebQuests as a quality learning experience for students in today s society. The history of WebQuests will be briefly discussed, as will an explanation of the constructivist learning theory the theory that advocates and embraces the analysis, synthesis, and evaluation of ideas that occurs within a WebQuest. In 1995, professor Bernie Dodge, from San Diego State University, began developing the WebQuest strategy. Dodge (1995) defined a WebQuest as an inquiry-oriented activity in which some or all of the information that learners interact with comes from resources on the Internet (p. 1). A WebQuest was defined by March (1997) as an inquiry activity that presents student groups with a challenging task, provides access to an abundance of usually online resources and scaffolds the learning process to prompt higher order thinking (p. 10). A WebQuest can also be defined as an assignment, which asks students to use the World Wide Web to learn about a specific topic (1999, Webquest 101), or simply, as an inquiry activity that presents student groups with a central question and related task (Web-and-Flow Interactive, 2001). The best topics are those that have ideas being disputed, or which offer several different perspectives. Current events, and controversial social or environmental topics work well, as does anything that requires evaluation or hypothesizing which will create a variety of interpretations among students. Students benefit from being linked to a wide variety of Web resources so that they can explore and make sense of the issues and aspects involved in the task (March, 1997). With a WebQuest, all students begin by learning some common background knowledge, then divide into groups. In the groups each student or pair of students have a particular role, task, or perspective to thoroughly understand. They become experts on one aspect of a topic. When the roles come together, students must synthesize their learning by completing a summarizing act

3 3 such as ing congressional representatives or presenting their interpretation to real world experts on the topic (March, 1997, p ). Dodge defines two levels of WebQuests: short term WebQuests and long term WebQuests. Through a short term WebQuest, students gain an integrated knowledge of a topic, usually within one to three class periods. With a long term WebQuest, students extend and refine their understanding, through analyzing a body of knowledge, transforming it, and demonstrating an understanding of the material in some way. A long term WebQuest can take from one week to a month to complete (Dodge, 1995). Cognitive conflicts lead to higher levels of reasoning and learning (Webb & Palinscar, 1996 in Applefield, et al., 2000/2001, p. 50). Cognitive conflicts arise when the students realize that there is a contradiction between their existing understanding and what they are currently experiencing. The best environment for creating such conflict, therefore, is an environment in which problems are posed, questions are raised and alternative perspectives are presented. Problem-based environments also promote peer collaboration and exchange of ideas, which are the major sources of cognitive conflict (Piaget, 1976, in Applefield). Because they are student centered, pose problems, raise questions, present alternative perspectives, and are inquiry based, WebQuests are among the most fascinating and worthwhile applications on the Internet for K-12 educators. A WebQuest challenges students to explore the web for information. Usually, WebQuests consist of an introduction, a process, a task, a list of resources, a conclusion, and an evaluation (Rollins, 2003). Teachers use a WebQuest when they want students to respond to a complex question, when they could benefit from working together cooperatively, when the students need a deeper understanding of a topic, and when the students would benefit from a real learning experience (Web-and-Flow Interactive, 2001).

4 4 WebQuests are designed to use students time well, as they focus on using information rather than aimlessly surfing the web. They bring together the most effective instructional practices into one integrated student activity (March, 1998, p. 3). WebQuests also support students thinking at the higher levels of Bloom s taxonomy--analysis, synthesis, and evaluation (Dodge & March in Stinson, 2001; Dodge, 1995). No longer can students passively absorb knowledge. They must become active learners interacting with peers and designing and implementing the learning (Legacy, p. 3) Students must be prepared for the types of learning situations they will encounter on the job If we want our students to be successful in the workplace, we ve go to model what we want them to be like, Legacy stated (p. 3). WebQuests use several strategies to increase student motivation. First, WebQuests pose a question that honestly needs answering. When students are asked to understand, hypothesize or problem-solve an issue that confronts the real world, they face an authentic task, not something that only carries meaning in a school classroom (March, 1998, p. 3). Secondly, students are motivated because they are given real resources to work with. They can directly contact individual experts, they can search databases, read current reporting, and contact special interest groups to gather their insights. Along with increasing student motivation, when students take on roles with a cooperative group, they must develop expertise on a particular aspect or perspective of the topic. Their teammates count on them to bring back understanding of the particular aspect. Because the WebQuests target learning about large, complex, or controversial topics, students will not master all of the aspects of that particular topic. The topic is divided up into segments. Students still have an overall understanding, as this happens in a later stage of the WebQuest. Students will also see that each group had a different solution, because of various approaches of the group

5 5 members research skills and background knowledge. As students complete more WebQuests they will become increasingly aware that their individual work has a direct impact of the intelligence of their group s final product (March 1998, p. 4). One of the main defenses for using a WebQuest is that students respond to questions that prompt higher level thinking. Built into the WebQuest process are the strategies of cognitive psychology and constructivism. First, the question posed to students can not be answered simply by collecting and spitting back information. A WebQuest forces students to transform information into something else: a cluster that maps out the main issues, a comparison, a hypothesis, a solution, etc. In order to engage students in higher level cognition, WebQuests use scaffolding or prompting which has been shown to facilitate more advanced thinking. In other words, by breaking the task into meaningful chunks and asking students to undertake specific sub-tasks, a WebQuest can step them through the kind of thinking process that more expert learners would typically use. Lastly, constructivism suggests that when students need to understand a more complex or sophisticated topic like those that comprise WebQuests, it doesn t help to serve them simplified truths, boiled down examples, or step-by-step formulas. What they need are many examples with lots of information and opinions on the topic through which they will sift until they have constructed an understanding that not only connects to their own individual prior knowledge, but also builds new schema that will be refined when students encounter the topic again in the future. Until the Web, this kind of activity was very difficult for the average teacher to create because collecting such a breadth of resources was next to impossible (March, 1998, p. 3-4). Constructivist theories of education stem from the work of Piaget (Bertrand, 2003). Constructivism suggests that understanding is derived from a meaning-making search in which learners engage in a process of constructing individual interpretations of their experiences (Applefield, et al., 2000/2001, p. 37). Thus, each person s knowledge is a function of his or her prior experiences, how they are perceived and how they are organized. Once organized into complex mental structures, we use our cognitive frameworks to interpret objects, ideas, relationships, or phenomena (Brooks & Brooks, 1993; Jonassen, 1993; Jonassen, Peck & Wilson, 1999 in Applefield, et al., 2000/2001, p. 46).

6 6 By thinking about their experiences, students construct their own understanding of the world in which they live. They create their own rules and models, which they use to make sense of their experiences. Since the constructivist theory believes that learning is a search for meaning, learning must start with the issues around which students are actively trying to construct meaning and focus on primary concepts, not isolated facts (Funderstanding). Teachers focus on making connections between facts and fostering new understanding in students. They monitor student responses and encourage students to analyze, interpret, and predict information. Teachers also rely heavily on open-ended questions and promote extensive dialogue among students (Funderstanding, p. 2). Constructivism views acquiring knowledge as what the learner is building and transforming, rather than what the learner is being taught by a sole instructor. The learning process should challenge students and cause them to reflect upon their interactions with new ideas, synthesizing the new into what is already understood. Those who adhere to this theory believe that their focus of teaching has undergone a dramatic change. The students own efforts are at the center of everything. They construct their own learning, adding new learning to existing learning. Constructivism maintains that learning is purposeful, intentional and collaborative (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1994, in Applefield, et al., 2000/2001, p. 46), and that learners will actively strive to achieve a cognitive objective. Meaningful learning may be promoted by a learning environment that has three main features. First, one should use authentic problems, that is, tasks having the contextual feel of the real world. Secondly, the learning environment should represent the natural complexity of the real world and avoid oversimplification of the task and instruction. And thirdly, a constructivist learning environment should support collaborative knowledge construction through social negotiation (Jonassen, 1991 in Applefield et al., 2000/2001, p. 49).

7 7 With a WebQuest, much of the learning is done in cooperative learning groups and is based on authentic learning tasks. Peer teaching or tutoring is also a large part of this theory, as it is believed that students learn more from conversations with each other than they would in isolation. Students become a community of learners, encouraged to take risks and embrace uncertainty, working together to solve real-life problems. Students learn quickly that they are to work cooperatively in their own group, contributing to the final outcome. Constructivist teachers carefully plan experiences for their students to meet their desired learning outcomes. They ask big, real-life questions, giving students time to think and explore, and time to gain a better grasp of complex ideas. The teachers job is to help to scaffold the learning experience for the students. It is also their job to provide tasks that require the students to work together, completing tasks that they will one day have to complete in the work force. These tasks are complex and problem-based. Teachers walk around the room, constantly observing, listening, and questioning. If something is not understood, the teachers job is to ask the right questions to get the students to think of an alternative response or idea, or to guide students to correct their misunderstandings. Research has shown that the most important factor related to student learning and technology use is how teachers relate the technology-based activity to other learning activities (March, 1998, p. 4). WebQuests should not stand alone, but be linked to previous and subsequent activities in the curriculum. In addition, WebQuests should not be considered the endpoint, but the beginning of student use of the Web for learing. Ideally, in the not so distant future, students will have internalized many of the cognitive strategies built into WebQuests, so that students direct and guide their own studies and findings. You might call this idea WebQuests as training wheels (March 1998, p. 4).

8 8 In summary, this paper has attempted to give a brief history of the WebQuest, as developed first by Bernie Dodge. The WebQuest was defined and defended as a significant and worthwhile learning experience for students, based on the constructivist theory of education, in which students create meaning and understanding for themselves based on their prior experiences. Working in cooperative groups on an authentic task posed by a WebQuest, students will be able to deepen their understandings through the dialogues they have with others, and through the resources they search on the Web. Because the complex questions require them to analyze, synthesize, and evaluate information, students are able to create new understandings. As Applefield et al. (2000/2001) stated, what is of enduring significance is that learners acquire deeper levels of understanding, see their learning in a meaningful context, become increasingly competent (and yes, efficient) learners, and have the awareness and ability to apply their learning in non-school contexts (p. 49). References Applefield, J.M., R. Huber & M. Moallem. (December 2000/January 2001). Constructivism in theory and practice: Toward a better understanding. The High School Journal, 84(2), p Bertrand, Y. (2003). Contemporary theories & practice in education. Madison, Wisconsin: Atwood Publishing. Dodge, B. (Written February 1995, last updated May 5, 1997). Some thoughts about WebQuests. (Downloaded on April 27, 2006). Dodge, B. (2005). WebQuest News. (Downloaded on April 27, 2006).

9 9 Le Couteur, R. (2005). Teaching with WebQuests. (Downloaded April 29, 2006). Legacy, J. Active online learning prepares students for the workplace, reflects changing learning style preferences. Online Magna Publications, Inc. March, T. (2006). Best WebQuests.com: Celebrating the best in WebQuests. (Downloaded on April 29, 2006). March, T. (Written April 20, 1998, posted September 10, 1998). WebQuests for learning. (Downloaded April 27, 2006). March, T. (Written August 1997, last revised April 18, 2005). Working the Web for education. (Downloaded April 27, 2006). Mioduser, D., R. Nachmias, O. Lahav & A. Oren. (2000). Web-based learning environments: Current pedagogical and technological state. Journal of Research on Computing in Education, 33 (1), p Rollins, D. (2003). WebQuests. (Downloaded on April 29, 2006). Schrock, K. (). WebQuests in our future: The teacher s role in cyberspace. (Downloaded April 27, 2006). Stinson, A.D. (2003, March). Encouraging the use of technology in the classroom: The WebQuest connection. Reading Online, 6(7). (Downloaded on April 27, 2006). Web-and-flow Interactive. (2001). The six Web-and-Flow activity formats. (Downloaded on April 27, 2006).

10 10 Webquest 101 Putting discovery into the curriculum. (Downloaded on April 27, 2006) WebQuest News. (Downloaded on April 29, 2006).