WebQuest Successful!

In my last post I said that I planned to have my seniors do a WebQuest for one of my introductory activities to Catcher in the Rye. We did this WebQuest on Thursday, and I have to say, it went pretty successfully. I did change the questions from what I had used last year. Some of the questions from last year's directed students to a particular URL, and I changed those this year to require the students to have to do all of the searching themselves.

I feel that making this change to the WebQuest was had both positive and negative overall effects on the activity. Looking at the negative effect first, many of the students really struggled with the ability to search for and find particular information on a top (ex. What is the difference between a banned book and a challenged book? or Research Salinger's father and Salinger's religion--what role did they play in Salinger's life?). I believe that many of the students struggled with the basic ability to search because many of my senior Career Comm. kids do not have computers at home, and thus, do not have advanced skill at "surfing" like most students who own a computer do. As a result, many of the students did not get very far in the WebQuest, despite the fact they were working quite diligently the entire class period.

The positive effects: 1) this activity gave those students who struggle with the skill practice in this area 2) the students really internalized what they researched. Being able to complete basic searches over the Internet, and problem solve when they have difficulty finding information will be a critical skill for my students, as most of them are going straight into the technical field, and many of those jobs use computers extensively. Additionally, the students really like that they were in control of what they were searching and the information they were finding. I discovered the next day when we discussed some of the topics that were researched, the students were able to rattle off information off the top of their heads, and I believe this was possible because of the format of the WebQuest.

After doing this activity with the kids, I now have much greater insight into the skills in which many of these students need improvement. After the Catcher in the Rye unit, the students will be doing an extensive career research project. For this project the students will need to use both books and technology to research topics related to their career such as: what educational background is required, what are the daily/weekly/monthly responsibilities for that career, what is the promotion system like, what is the pay like, how does your career interact with the community, in what ways does your career use reading/writing/oral speaking, how is your career affected by politics (public voting, electing of officials), etc. I now know that when we go to do this unit these students will need to have a great deal of modeling and practice with using the many different research tools available to them at Hickman. They will also need extensive instruction and practice with learning what is and is not a valid/reliable research source. I do feel that by the end of the year if these students are proficient in these areas that they will be very prepared for any career they enter into after they graduate.