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Teacher's Net

Lesson 6: Instructional Design2, Part Two

Focus On WebQuests... In-Depth Creation Guide

Step One: Select a Topic

This is the spring board, the most important part of creating your WebQuest. It might be a good idea to brainstorm, beginning with the heading "English" or "Science", whatever your subject is. From there, refine the topic with specific ideas. What you want to end up with is a topic that is guided enough to give your students direction, meaningful enough to impart knowledge for retention, and relative to a lesson or unit that you are/will be exploring in class. Feel overwhelmed yet? Don't worry, you can grab a checklist here, which will help you evaluate WebQuest topics.

Step Two: Defining the Task and Sub-Tasks

The Task is the main focus your student's work should take, making your goals known. A good task should engage the students to perform creative thinking and premotes comprehension that goes beyond fact recall. In easier terms, the Main Task should, ideally, be the Project Outcome that you have integrated into your lesson.

Sub-Tasks can be step-by-step guidelines for the students to follow, or related topics for the students to explore "on their own"- a set of five choices, for example, from which the student can pick one they're most interested in, and use this sub-task to enhance the uniqueness of their Project Outcome.

Step Three: Selecting and Using a Design Template

There is no reason that you should have to learn html in order to create a WebQuest. There are plenty of designers out there whose sole purpose is to create great layouts that you can use, simply adding your text into the layout without messing with html and graphic design. In other words, give yourself time to do what you do best - teach.

Below are links to three separate layouts which I've created specifically for this course. Some are more graphical than others; your decision should be based on whether you plan to distribute this Quest online (meaning you'd want fewer graphics, for faster download times), or whether you plan to distribute your Quest on a CD (you can get as graphical as you want to, then). Please do NOT share these layouts with anyone. They have been created specifically for users of this course, and are restricted to your own use within a classroom setting.

Pick the layout that you want to use and open it in an html editor (like Microsoft FrontPage, Dreamweaver, or Adobe GoLive), or - if you don't have an html editor - right-click the file after you have downloaded it and choose "Open With... Microsoft Word". From there, all that you have to do is add your own text and save.

Step Four: Design an Assessment Rubric

All good WebQuests contain an assessment rubric which outlines for the students exactly what they'll be graded on, and how that grading will occur.

This can be a tricky step, until you've done it a few times. Until you have that practice, though, you can grab pre-made and customizable rubrics here.

Step Five: List Resources for Your Students

Specialized Search Engines to find websites for your web quest

Step Six: Polishing Your Quest:

Tips for polishing up your web quest page.

Step Seven: Finalizing your Web Quest

Checklist to make sure you covered all of the bases

Step Eight: Your Web Quest (Critical Elements)

Introduction: This should grab your students' attention and set the stage for your topic.
Task: Defines the goal of the Web Quest.
Procedure: Gives the students' directions on the what, when and where of your Web Quest.
Resources: Defines the sites that are acceptable for research on the topic.
Evaluation: Give a copy of the rubric to be used to the students.
Conclusion: 'Wraps up' and summarizes the topic chosen and the learning that should have taken place during the students' research. This can sometimes incorporate a summary-type question that requires the students to synthesize their learning (ex: "Now that you have looked at all of the social classes in Elizabethan England, which would you prefer to belong to? Why?")

Step Nine: Evaluating the success of your Web Quest

Use the WebQuest Rubric from the first half of this week's lesson to assess your WebQuest and make any final adjustments.

Step Ten: Distribution

By far, the easiest way to distribute your WebQuest is on CD or foppy disk. This way, you can give each student a copy and charge them with responsibility for it; beginning the process of independent learning that is integral to a WebQuest.