EDU221WebQuestProcessSection

The Process Section gives detailed instructions to your students on what they are to do and how. It also includes all the resources they will need in order to complete the learning successfully. Think of it as the Teaching and Learning Sequence from your UbD lessons. =Internet Resources= The purpose of a WebQuest is to give your students the chance to use the Internet as a powerful research tool and resource for learning WHILE following a quest to uncover knowledge about a given topic. The majority of the resources for your students for this project should be Internet-based. This is where your Teaching and Learning Sequence will come alive.

Every resource you provide your students should be credible and reliable. Remember the information website evaluation page we used in class. You do not have to fill out a form for each site you find, but you should have evaluated each website thoroughly and feel confident about every resource you link to your WebQuest.

Now that you have good resources, how are your students supposed to use them? Make it clear in the Process section what the purpose of each Internet site is. Are there any mandatory sites that everyone should use? Are some sites for specific roles? Students should know why they are going to click on a site before they click on it. Note that older WebQuests have a separate section for Resources but research has shown it's more efficient and more productive to embed the resources right into the Process section. That is the expectation for your WebQuest that you are designing for EDU 221.

The WebQuest is about having students "use" the Web, not "search" the Web. Do not allow your students to use Web pages that they find on their own. If you want to allow students to search for their own Web sites (in addition to the ones you provide), they must be approved by you. The majority of Web resources in a WebQuest should still be ones that you select and evaluate.

In addition to having resources for your students to learn about the content, consider providing resources to help them in the creation of their performance task. Find good tutorials on the tools your students will use (iMovie, Windows Movie Maker, Audacity, Garage Band, etc.). Find websites to support them in public speaking, composing a good business letter, preparing a persuasive argument, etc.

=Detailed Instructions= Your process section should be detailed enough for a substitute teacher (who knows your content and is a qualified, experienced teacher) could carry it on without you. It should also be organized enough and clear enough for your students to know what to do (and how and when).

Directions are organized well and flow easily

 * Is it written in a clear way so that students really understand the expectations?
 * Is the information organized in some way to make it seem manageable (not just one R E A L L Y long list of things to do)?
 * You can have "steps" or "stages" that are numbered or labeled ("Do Your Research," "Write an Oscar-Worthy Script," ...). Make sure you use true "steps" where there's an action to do or a "step" to take in each section.
 * Is the organizational system consistent (if you called the first part "step 1," are all the other parts "steps" or did you call one of them a "stage"? if you used font formatting to organize, were you consistent? can a viewer see the big parts and tell subsets easily?...)
 * Is the sequence logical? (Did you list things in the order you really want the students to do them in?)

Directions are thorough

 * For each major step, what preparation should the students have to be able to be successful in that step? Have you provided opportunities for the students to be prepared for the major step?
 * Could a sub carry on in your absence based on the information in the Process section? Can parents figure out what their children should be doing? Can students be successful without stopping to ask you procedural questions?

Writing style keeps reader engaged in the story

 * Where possible, did you stay in "character" for your scenario and avoid the use of "school-sounding" words (quiz, worksheet, classmates, student, desk, teacher, etc.)?
 * Is it written in second person ("you," "With your partner, decide on a name for your Web 2.0 design company." etc.) OR when written in third person did you stay in the scenario ("the members of the design team will . . . ", "each time traveler will create a journal.", etc.)?

Internet resources are embedded within the directions

 * Is it clear which sites are mandatory, which are optional, and which are for specific roles but not other roles?
 * Are you using the direct link and not the google search result for that link?
 * **Direct Link**: http://agsci.psu.edu/communications/web/best-practices/appropriate-link-text
 * **Google Search result for the link**: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=5&ved=0CDsQFjAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Fagsci.psu.edu%2Fcommunications%2Fweb%2Fbest-practices%2Fappropriate-link-text&ei=NZLGTvmgNOnz0gGqtvAN&usg=AFQjCNFYVRjiH94I2ba_3KzyFxbNsopZCA
 * Is there enough description for each resource that students can tell 1. what information they are to gain from that Web site and 2. what they should do when they get to the site? //(Here's the ultimate test: If a parent were to print out the process section of your WebQuest, could he/she tell what sites his/her child would be going to and why, even though the parent cannot click on the link?)//
 * Are your resource links embedded in text? (Don't just list the URL.)
 * Instead of "click here" or "this link", is the resource described and the essential descriptive text hyperlinked?
 * National Geographic has a good [|description of the habitat of the Brazilian Rain Forest].
 * Listen to [|band music from the Civil War Era]. There are 17 songs at the Library of Congress Web site, pick 2 to listen to all the way through.

Procedural steps AND Web resources are included for all aspects of the process section

 * **Content** that will be in the performance task (review or introduce the subject material your students are supposed to know--even if you've already covered it in lessons 1-5, have resources for students who were absent, didn't get it the first time, etc. AND it will be good for parents, teachers, and other WWW audience members who weren't in your class; additionally, these resources can be used by your students to double check the accuracy of their content before creating their final product)
 * **Preparation** for creating the performance task (storyboard, [|writing a script], [|how to write persuasively]; don't forget graphic organizer, checklist, formative assessment, etc.) NOTE: The linked resources are not for your students, they are a list of possible resources that you can peruse and select the one(s) that will benefit your students. It's intended to be a starting point for you to find good resources for your WebQuest.
 * **Production** of the performance task (tutorials or FAQ resources related to the software students are using to create the performance task--resources to help them be successful in creating their performance task AND being independent of you)
 * **Presentation** of the performance task (public speaking, persuasiveness, how to handle contentious questions)

[Here's a Word document with most of the same information in it if you want a printout. [[file:WebQuestProcessChecklistFall16.docx]]