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Using WebQuests to Scaffold Higher-Order Thinking
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Author | Fossen, Phillip J. Van |
| Copyright Year | 2004 |
| Abstract | BECAUSE OF ITS INTERACTIVE AND MULTIMEDIA NATURE, the Internet has been touted as an increasingly important aspect of both elementary and secondary education. “Along with word processing, the Internet may be the most valuable of the many computer technologies available to teachers and students.” Others have said that the Internet has the ability to break down the classroom’s physical limitations, allowing students access to experiences well beyond the limited resources available in classrooms and traditional libraries.2 The use of the Internet is said to develop students’ inquiry and analytical skills.3 Moreover, some educators have argued that the social studies are the school discipline most likely to make use of the Internet because of the very nature of the medium—its relatively unrestricted access to information. However, despite this perceived fit between technology and pedagogy, only a small proportion of K-5 teachers are using the Internet regularly during instruction generally,4 with an even smaller proportion using the Internet during social studies instruction.5 The two most common explanations of this non-use are (a) that most elementary classrooms still have connectivity issues (i.e., no Internet access or very slow access) and (b) that teachers lack computer training in general—and training on Internet use in particular. A recent study, however, found that even when K-5 teachers had Internet access and computers in their classrooms and had multiple training sessions, they were still not using the Internet in social studies instruction. As part of a larger, statewide study, 594 K-5 teachers in Indiana responded to a questionnaire that asked, among a number of other things, about their classroom Internet use. Ninety-five percent of these respondents reported that they had Internet access in their classrooms (65.5 percent reported having a “fast, reliable connection”) and 57 percent reported participating in multiple training sessions. However, only 5.3 percent said that they never used the Internet in social studies instruction, and 25 percent used it only rarely.6 These results raise the question: Why isn’t the Internet, with all its apparent potential, being used more often by K-5 teachers? One possible answer is that sorting through the vastness of cyberspace is difficult: The process of finding quality information from among the millions of websites available on many topics has been likened to trying to drink from a fire hose. This problem, in turn, makes curriculum development difficult, especially for already time-strapped practitioners. Enter the WebQuest. Proposed in 995 by Bernie Dodge and Tom March, the WebQuest model has become one of the predominant Internet curriculum models used in classrooms today. WebQuests can be thought of as self-contained instructional modules that scaffold Internet-based content to an inquiry-oriented process that results in a student product or project.7 In this way, WebQuests provide an important organizing framework for Ph illi p J . V an Fo sse n |
| Starting Page | 13 |
| Ending Page | 16 |
| Page Count | 4 |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | http://www.socialstudies.org/sites/default/files/publications/yl/1604/160413.pdf |
| Volume Number | 16 |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
