One of the principles mentioned in the Doge article that I feel Hilary and I implemented in our WebQuest successfully was organizing people. In our WWI WebQuest we grouped students together in teams of four. We then had these groups break up questions on a specific technology used in this war and research them on their own. Once the research was complete the group met together and shared their research. They were to make sure that everyone in their group could explain all of the answers well. We then broke up the students into new groups where they joined ‘experts’ who had studied different subjects. The goal of each student was to convince those in their group that their technology was the most important.
I think that this strategy enhanced our WebQuest because it added an element of competition and allowed students to work with many different students. It also allowed the students to use higher level thinking as the researched and formulated an argument backing their research. As the article mentioned it also allowed for positive interdependence, and group accountability. To improve upon this in the future we might decide to base the research on pair work instead of independent research.
2 comments:
Donna, I love to read your posts because you are always to positive and upbeat. I liked your ideas about group work. I think that this is something Nicole and I could have made clearer in our WebQuest. I liked how the Dodge article stressed the importance of giving guidance on HOW to work together and how to promote individual and group accountability. If we can learn to do this as teachers our students will benefit so much.
I agree with both of you! I believe that by allowing students to work in multiple groups will be extremely beneficial in the classroom community. I liked that the organization of your Webquest allowed for a lot dialogue amongst the students. It sounds like a great application of organizing people, as described in the article.
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