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|Webquests: Utilizing Technology in a Constructivist Manner to Facilitate Meaningful Preservice Learning |
|Rina Kundu, Christina Bain. Art Education. Reston: Mar 2006.Vol. 59, Iss. 2; pg. 6, 6 pgs |
|Subjects: |Colleges & universities, Learning, Teacher education, College students, Information |
| |literacy, Problem solving, Field trips, Research, Art education |
|Author(s): |Rina Kundu, Christina Bain |
|Document types: |Commentary |
|Publication title: |Art Education. Reston: Mar 2006. Vol. 59, Iss. 2; pg. 6, 6 pgs |
|Source type: |Periodical |
|ISSN/ISBN: |00043125 |
|ProQuest document ID: |999545131 |
|Text Word Count |3497 |
|Document URL: | 14907&RQT=309&VName=PQD |
|Abstract (Document Summary) |
|Teachers can design webquests to eliminate some of the traditional obstacles to art-based learning, expanding the types of inquiry|
|that can be undertaken in classes and enabling students to master materials through problem solving and critical thinking. The |
|purpose of this article is to elucidate the nature of webquests, explain how and why our program utilizes them in preservice art |
|teacher education, and provide information on how classroom practice can engage students actively in facilitating meaning making. |
|1 Before producing a webquest, students have engaged with a number of issues in relationship to teaching and learning with |
|technology, including information literacy, the ability to identify, locate, evaluate, and use information for a problem at hand. |
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|Full Text (3497 words) |
|Copyright National Art Education Association Mar 2006 |
|Teachers tend to emulate the teaching styles or methods they were exposed to both as students and as preservice educators (Carter |
|& Sottile, 2002; Johnson, 1991). One of the more challenging aspects of teaching preservice students at the university level is |
|not only providing these students with the most current pedagogical theories, but also demonstrating how these various theories |
|translate into actual practice in the art classroom. |
|While traditional forms of teaching, such as lecturing, certainly enable an instructor to disseminate a body of knowledge fairly |
|quickly and efficiently, they do not necessarily engage students most effectively or authentically in the learning process. |
|Current educational theory (Hanson, 2002; Manery, 2003; Wilkinson, McNutt, & Friedman, 2003) holds that meaningful learning |
|requires learners to interact with new information in ways that enable active inquiry. Students should have opportunities to |
|construct their own knowledge and to develop their own cognitive maps, connecting concepts with meaning making. As students |
|actively engage with learning, they can move to higher levels of cognition that involve applying, synthesizing, and evaluating |
|knowledge. |
|Teachers can design webquests to eliminate some of the traditional obstacles to art-based learning, expanding the types of inquiry|
|that can be undertaken in classes and enabling students to master materials through problem solving and critical thinking. As |
|teachers and researchers, we are interested in examining how webquests can nurture authentic forms of student learning. The |
|purpose of this article is to elucidate the nature of webquests, explain how and why our program utilizes them in preservice art |
|teacher education, and provide information on how classroom practice can engage students actively in facilitating meaning making. |
|Passive Learning |
|Most art teachers have experienced at least one art history course, fondly remembered as "art in the dark," during their college |
|coursework. For decades, this single teaching methodology, a slide-illustrated lecture, has dominated the teaching of art history |
|at the university. The methodology often encourages rote memorization and passive learning among students. Students are moved |
|along with the use of slides and the format fosters little sense of participation or exploration. Looking at images presented |
|through reproductions where art and artifacts are situated out of context collapses differences between art forms. |
|This particular methodology of teaching then gets practiced within secondary schools. Art educators often use slides and transmit |
|information to students, discussing artists' intent and formal qualities of images and artifacts. The social life of things, that |
|is how people use art and artifacts, disappears. At best, they explore exercises that require them to know the conditions that |
|mediate the use of various principles, including conducting a visual analysis and comparing and contrasting objects, and little is|
|done in examining objects within contexts and finding interrelationships between objects and cultures. |
|Internet resources, however, can connect art to its social practices. Students can talk to people in communities beyond their own |
|environments to discover alternative ways of knowing. Through virtual field trips they can look at objects within contexts and see|
|how they are used. Such field trips can be an important educational tool for facilitating a spatial understanding versus a linear |
|understanding of objects. Webquests using Internet resources enable the production of knowledge through inquiry. Furthermore, |
|webquests change instruction and involve students in the social practices of art. The instructor works as "a guide on the side" |
|instead of the authority figure standing in front of the classroom. |
|What is a Webquest? |
|First, let us clear up some possible misconceptions regarding the nature of webquests. Although they exist in an on-line |
|environment, they are quite distinct from other forms of educational technology. For example, PowerPoint(TM) presentations are |
|teacher-centered and mainly linear in direction; on-line treasure hunts require filling out an answer sheet or finding the "right"|
|answer; and surfing the web may not have an educational purpose. Although students often find solving webquests to be fun, unlike |
|on-line games, their purpose is neither for competition or entertainment. Furthermore, although students access on-line resources,|
|they are directed to a selection of specific resources that will enable them to use their time wisely and efficiently. |
|To be more specific, webquests are online, interactive modules that allow students to be involved in inquiry-oriented learning. A |
|webquest can be thought of as a microworld, where students explore an issue in a learning environment that is both cooperative and|
|contextual. Through an in-depth examination of web-based resources, students gather and synthesize information in collaboration |
|with their peers to solve a problem. While, as a group, students who undertake a webquest interact and work together, each group |
|member carries out a specific, meaningful role. Webquest roles could include such varied jobs as art historian, sociologist, |
|anthropologist, and archeologist. Each role enables students to carry out their research from a particular perspective. Group |
|members then pool their respective research findings, bring their newly acquired knowledge to bear on an issue, formulate a |
|response to a complex, open-ended problem, and propose a reflective and critical solution. Unlike traditional learning activities,|
|there can be multiple solutions to the problem in a webquest. |
|Because the work of a webquest involves cooperative and collaborative learning, the negotiation of authentic resources, the active|
|application of researched knowledge, and the construction of a solution to an open-ended problem, it is a constructivist effort. |
|Therefore, this type of learning is quite different from learning with PowerPoint(TM) or web treasure hunts. Although |
|PowerPoint(TM) and web treasure hunts integrate technology into the classroom and enable students to work actively, they reinforce|
|traditional methods of teaching and learning-transmitting and memorizing information, and identifying and recalling specifics in |
|isolation from a context. |
|Understanding, however, involves the meaningful application of facts, information, and knowledge within a context. Complexity, |
|diverse viewpoints, and critical insights characterize understanding-all of which are enabled through problems proposed within a |
|webquest. |
|History and Structure of Webquests |
|The history of the webquest is relatively short. Bernie Dodge and Tom March developed the original concept in 1995 at San Diego |
|State University. According to Dodge (1997) a webquest is "an inquiry-oriented activity in which some or all of the information |
|that learners interact with comes from resources on the Internet, optionally supplemented with videoconferencing" (p. 1). Dodge |
|(1997) delineates two different types of webquests: short-term and long-term. The more commonly practiced short-term webquest can |
|be completed in one to three class periods and focuses on the acquisition and synthesis of knowledge. The long-term webquest |
|requires students to spend one week to one month on the problem and allows learners to demonstrate an understanding of the |
|material by creating a product, either on-line or off-line. TheWebQuest Page (Dodge, 1998), located at , |
|receives more than 1,700 hits a day and is proof that educational interest concerning webquests is growing. |
|Typically, webquests contain several of the same components. Dodge (1997) contends that webquests should include the following: an|
|introduction, a task, information sources, a process, some guidance, and a conclusion. |
|1. An introduction that sets the stage and provides some background information. |
|2. A task that is doable and interesting. |
|3. A set of information sources needed to complete the task. Many (though not necessarily all) of the resources are embedded in |
|the Webquest document itself as anchors pointing to information on the World Wide Web. Information sources might include web |
|documents, experts available via e-mail or real-time conferencing, searchable databases on the Internet, and books and other |
|documents physically available in the learner's setting. Because pointers to resources are included, the learner is not left to |
|wander through webspace completely adrift. |
|4. A description of the process the learners should go through in accomplishing the task. The process should be broken out into |
|clearly described steps. |
|5. Some guidance on how to organize the information acquired. This can take the form of guiding questions, or directions to |
|complete organizational frameworks such as time-lines, concept maps, or cause-and-effect diagrams. |
|6. A conclusion that brings closure to the quest, reminds the learners about what they've learned, and perhaps encourages them to |
|extend the experience into other domains (Dodge, 1997, p.1). |
|Dodge (2001), in collaboration with the San Diego City Schools Education Technology Department, further advocates the inclusion of|
|a teacher page which would contain information regarding standards, targeted learners, and suggestions for teaching the unit. |
|Although not every webquest includes the exact same components, they indeed have a similar structure. |
|How and Why Does Our Program Integrate Webquests into Preservice Learning? |
|At the University of North Texas (UNT), our program requires art education preservice students to complete two technology |
|courses:ART 3170: Computers in Art and ART 4830:Technology in the Visual Arts.The first course focuses on the production of art on|
|the computer, while the latter focuses on how technology has changed the nature of teaching and learning. Our students examine |
|webquests' in the second course and work together as teams to design one. Usually, students take about 3 to 4 weeks to |
|collaboratively construct the webquest, using a web editor such as Dreamweaver(TM) or Composer(TM). The students include an |
|introduction, a task, a process, an evaluation rubric, and a conclusion in their webquests. The process section includes roles for|
|participants to play, Internet resources to be used to conduct the research, and questions to focus the participants' attention. |
|We have several teaching goals in mind when we present the webquest project. |
|1. We wish to motivate our students to create lessons that speak to the complexity of art-based learning. Lessons should not be |
|obsessed with learning art skills but must speak to how art enables the production of knowledge in relationship to living in |
|society. |
|2. We want students to understand how to integrate technology into art-based learning and how technology can enhance learning and |
|create different types of learning opportunities. What are the pros and cons of constructivist learning? Or with using technology |
|in a constructivist manner? What are some of the problems students will face in assessing learning that is supported by |
|technology? |
|3. We want our students to understand how to address the needs of diverse learners through technology. We want our preservice |
|students to design specific cognitive activities that allow students to produce knowledge from different perspectives and that |
|utilixe different ways of learning. Activities should be meaningful to not only to preservice teachers but also their future |
|students, relating back to their worklviews. |
|4. We wish to enable preservice students to develop their thinking skills. As future art educators, this is essential. One of our |
|preservice students criticized this project because she was given "too many options" (personal communication, April, 2004). |
|Teaching art, however, requires choices, and it is up to our students to make the best choices for themselves and encourage their |
|future students to do the same. |
|5. We want our students to learn how to negotiate working collaboratively. As art teachers they will be part of a school-a |
|team-and it is important for them to practice interpersonal skills. |
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|Figure 1. Introduction page for webquest The Monument Makers by students Andrea Asburn, Catherine Cave, Bill Close, Rebecca Crake,|
|and Kara Shotwell, 2004. |
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|An Example of a Webquest Designed by Preservice Students |
|Although our preservice students have designed many innovative webquests, here we describe one entitled The Monument Makers (see |
|Figure 1). Designed for teams of high school students, this webquest begins with a particular scenario: A freak tidal wave has |
|damaged the Statue of Liberty beyond repair and there is a need for a new public monument. The webquest then challenges students |
|to create a proposal for a new public monument for New York City in response to a competition held by the city to replace the |
|well-known statue. The monument must speak to New York City's past, present, and future, as well as the nation at large. |
|Participants take on different roles such as art historian, sociologist, project director, and site organizer to study the history|
|of the monument building, particularly that of the Statue of Liberty, the values of the communities existing at the site, |
|fundraising initiatives to build the monument, the environmental conditions of the site, and the materials needed to construct the|
|monument. Although students carry out different research tasks, they must pool their knowledge in order to create the proposal. |
|Their final proposal must include a PowerPoint(TM) presentation and a design plan that includes two-dimensional sketches and a |
|three-dimensional model. The proposals are then presented to an audience who decides which of the projects would be most valuable |
|and most viable. |
|What Do We Want to Teach Our Students Using Constructivist Methods? |
|Among the cognitive learning theories available, constructivism and situated learning are most significant to creating an active |
|art classroom. Constructivism promotes the idea that learners construct knowledge. As von Glaserfeld (1996) explains, what sets |
|constructivism apart from other learning theories is its epistemology; in other words, knowledge is not a collection of facts but |
|a mapping of actions and operations that become viable to a learner's experience. Learning thus becomes an activity that students |
|must carry out. According to Fosnot (1996), constructivism includes such characteristics as challenging, open-ended investigations|
|in realistic, meaningful contexts, allowing students to generate their own hypotheses and models as possibilities. We want our |
|preservice students to facilitate a classroom atmosphere where their students engage in activity and reflection, as they |
|communicate and defend their ideas. Such an understanding of constructivism is used to create webquests and the assessment tasks |
|contained within them. In developing their webquests, preservice students construct a problem that enables multiple solutions and |
|allows students to present these to an audience, such as their classmates, for feedback and evaluation. |
|Situated learning asserts that enculturation leads to learning. Brown, Collins, and Duguid (1996) explain that knowledge is |
|situated, a product of the activity, context, and culture in which it is used. Most situated learning theorists advocate for |
|authentic practices, which place content within context. Situated learning has it roots in Lev Vygotsky's ideas about social |
|development. Vygotsky (1997) notes that understanding is social; the relationship between the individual and a social context is |
|dynamic. To be human is to be socially situated and historical. The life space in which we live is inseparable from we who produce|
|it. So learning leads development. |
|As noted by Newman and Holzman (1996), understanding must be seen as a relational activity. We do not respond to stimuli, acquire |
|socially determined and useful skills, and adapt to an environment. We continually transform the circumstances of our environment,|
|working jointly with it. For example, as Newman and Holzman (1996) explain, becoming a speaker of language is not the mere |
|acquisition of a skill or behavior. It is transformative, opening up new possibilities for the child. People respond to the child |
|as a speaker even if she does not have all the credentials. The child becomes a speaker because she is related to as a speaker. |
|Any tool, including technology, not only facilitates but also reshapes and transforms experience. |
|In developing webquests, preservice students participate with their peers in the context of production. Learning is thus not |
|located within an individual but is placed in the context of the social. This situated learning experience thus goes beyond the |
|concept of learning by doing, and is considered inseparable from social practice. In the context of webquests, a virtual |
|environment situates learning. Social interaction and participation is the key to learning within this context. Authentic |
|activities are used to stimulate students toward problem solving and critical thinking. Students collaborate, do activities that |
|facilitate understanding, use ideas central to the discipline of art, and address concepts and issues in life. Table 1 summarizes |
|the differences between traditional and constructivist teaching methods: |
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|Table 1 |
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|Differences Between Traditional and Constructivist Learning |
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|Conclusion |
|As researchers begin to seriously examine webquests, it is time for art educators to better understand how and why they should |
|consider integrating them into their preservice programs. We believe that while they learn pedogogical theory, preservice students|
|must also be required to use it to be fully engaged. Given a reason to learn, students will learn. As they make sense out of ideas|
|and communicate this synthesis to others, they are involved in both critical thinking and problem solving. |
|At various stages in the development of a webquest, students make new connections that enrich their production and their |
|understanding of how to integrate technology into the art classroom in a constructivist manner. Furthermore, webquests themselves |
|are authentic. Participants work cooperatively and collaboratively to produce knowledge. They carry out research from a particular|
|perspective, in relationship to prior knowledge, reading ability, and mastery. The researched knowledge individuals bring back to |
|their group is of value because it furthers the understanding of others. |
|Our own practice of using webquests has been rewarding. Students report that constructing webquests has engaged their creativity, |
|critical thinking, and problem solving skills, and has enabled them to re-examine the usefulness of technology in the art |
|classroom. As student Elizabeth Smalling noted, |
|While a Power Point(TM) presentation may complement instruction, a webquest truly redefines it. In a webquest activity, students |
|engage in constructivist learning by role playing and performing independent tasks. By working as a team with the same goal yet |
|individual tasks, children experience how it is in a real work place-people, with differing jobs, working toward one goal. |
|(personal communication, December 10, 2004) |
|Furthermore, as student Alesia Thompson Shaw also explains, |
|Technology in the form of webquest opportunities allows students to consume and evaluate multiple representations, images, and |
|inputs found in their Internet searches. Students enter a community of thinkers in a diverse ecology of participation where |
|discussion of ideas can occur with real people outside of their schoolmates and teachers (Looi, 2000). With the changing |
|organization of ideas and information that the Web and Internet provide, why would any teacher not want to expose students to this|
|community? (personal communication, December 13, 2004) |
|Why indeed. |
|[Sidebar] |
| |
|While, as a group, students who undertake a webquest interact and work together, each group member carries out a specific, |
|meaningful role. Webquest roles could include such varied jobs as art historian, sociologist, anthropologist, and archeologist. |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
|[Sidebar] |
| |
|As von Glaserfeld (1996) explains... Knowledge is not a collection of facts but a mapping of actions and operations that become |
|viable to a learner's experience. Learning thus becomes an activity that students must carry out. |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
|[Sidebar] |
| |
|Authentic activities are used to stimulate students toward problem solving and critical thinking. Students collaborate, do |
|activities that facilitate understanding, use ideas central to the discipline of art, and address concepts and issues in life. |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
|[Footnote] |
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|ENDNOTE |
| |
|1 Before producing a webquest, students have engaged with a number of issues in relationship to teaching and learning with |
|technology, including information literacy, the ability to identify, locate, evaluate, and use information for a problem at hand. |
|Because the Internet is leveled, students investigate how to find trustworthy resources and they build guidelines that distinguish|
|complex educational resources from those that are less complex. Students have listed such criteria as information retrieval, |
|interactivity, and publishing capabilities in their evaluation of "good" websites. As users, they want a voice in the learning |
|process as well as control over their pace through a site. |
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|[Reference] |
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|REFERENCES |
| |
|Brown, J. S., Collins,A., & Duguid, P. (1996). Situated cognition and the culture of learning. In H. McLellan (Ed.), Situated |
|learning perspectives (pp. 19-44). Englewood, NJ: Educational Technology Publications. |
| |
|Carter, W. & Sottile, J. M. (2002, February-March). Changing the ecosystem ofpreservice math and science methods classes to |
|enhance students'social, cognitive, and emotional development. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Eastern Educational |
|Research Association, Sarasota, FL. |
| |
|Dodge, B. (1997). Some thoughts about webquests. Retrieved April 29, 2005, from |
| |
|Dodge, B. (1998).The webquest page. Retrieved April 29, 2005, from |
| |
|Dodge, B. (2001). The building blocks of a webquest. Retrieved May 1, 2005, from |
| |
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|Fosnot, C.T. (1996). Constructivism: A psychological theory of learning. In C.T. Fosnot (Ed.), Constructivism: Theory, |
|perspectives, and practice (pp. 8-33). New York:Teachers College, Columbia University. |
| |
|Hanson J. (2002). Improving student learning in mathematics and science through the integration of visual art. Unpublished |
|master's thesis, Saint Xavier University. |
| |
|Johnson, G. (1991). Connecting university science experiences to middle school science teaching. Journal of Science Teacher |
|Education, 2(3), 79-82. |
| |
|Looi, C. K. (2000). A learning ecology perspective for the Internet. Educational Technology, 40(3), 56-60. |
| |
|Manery, R. (2003). Cosmic oranges: Observation and inquiry through descriptive writing and art. Newark, DE: International Reading |
|Association. |
| |
|Newman, F., & Holzman, L. (1996). Unscientific psychology : A cultural-performatory approach to understanding human life. |
|Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers. |
| |
|von Glaserfeld, E. (1996). Introduction: Aspects of constructivism. In C.T. Fosnot, (Ed.), Constructivism: Theory, perspectives, |
|and practice (pp. 3-7). New York: Teachers College, Columbia University. |
| |
|Vygotsky, L. (1997). Thought and language. (A. Kozulin,Trans.). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. (Original work published 1934.) |
| |
|Wilkinson, P.F., McNutt, M.A., & Friedman, E.S. (2003). Practical teaching methods K-6: Sparking the flame of learning. Thousand |
|Oaks, CA: Corwin Press, Inc. |
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|[Author Affiliation] |
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|Rina Kundu and Christina Bain are art education faculty members at the University of North Texas, Denton. E-mail: Kundu@unt.edu or|
|bain@unt.edu |
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