Description and Evaluation of Inquiry-Based Lessons

Second blog entry--Week of July 6th

The Grickle-grass Gazette is a WebQuest based on the story, The Lorax, by Dr. Seuss. It is an Inquiry-based lesson on the environment. What makes a WebQuest special is that it is a web-based assignment. Although all assignments might be turned in on paper, the format of the assignment, and all phases there-of, are posted on the Internet. Completed in 2001, this WebQuest holds true and does get the students to think about the bigger picture, “What can I do to help the environment?” After viewing a number of different WebQuests and Inquiry-based lessons, I have found that they tend to follow basically the same format, with most features being the same. It seems they all have an Introduction to start. In the Introduction, the WebQuest/Inquiry-based lesson describes what is going to be the basis for the assignment. In the case of this WebQuest, it is saving the environment.

After the Introduction, this particular lesson has a “Learners” page. Here, the intended audience for this assignment explained (2^nd – 4^th grade students for this one) and gives a brief summary of what the students will need to know in order to complete the WebQuest. I feel that this is important because it breaks down into different steps what skills will be needed and allows for students to get practice in each of these skills. This was a step that was not listed on the other WebQuests I viewed.

After the Learners page comes the Standards page. On this page, the curriculum standards are listed so that teachers know what aspects of the curriculum is being focused on. Multiple subjects and their curricular standards can be listed if need be. Again, this was for this WebQuest only and did not appear on others I viewed.

Familiar to all the WebQuests I looked at was the Process page. On this page are the steps that need to be followed and (ideally) the order that they should be followed in. This is an important piece to the WebQuest because it helps the students budget their time and it also provides a checklist of sorts to help them stay focused in terms of what they have completed or what they still need to do.

On The Lorax WebQuest, the next page was Resources, which was unique to this lesson. It simply listed the resources that were used (text, websites, videos, technology) to create this WebQuest.

Next comes the Evaluation page, which includes the rubric that the students will be assessed by. On this page, a rubric was used. However, on another WebQuest I viewed, the Evaluation was questions to ask yourself to make sure you accomplished in the process step of the WebQuest. There was no specific rubric listed, just reminders to make sure certain points were made during the process stage.

In the Conclusion page of the WebQuests I looked at was where it seemed like the “inquiry” question was asked. It seems like this is where the project was concluded and the upper level thinking was summarized.

I viewed a number of WebQuests for this assignment. After viewing them I better realize what a WebQuest is, the components that make them up, and have ideas for future creation of multiple WebQuests for my students. One thing is for certain...make sure that any links remain unbroken so that users can accomplish your assignments without running into problems.