Reflection on revised lesson plan_Webquest

I have revised the previous lesson plan to make the lesson to be more student-centered. To do that I have created a webquest on the human digestive system to give my students a new approach in learning. Although my previous lesson was interactive but I felt by using webquests, it would allow students to take the initiative to discover knowledge on their own. By using the webquest, lesson activities are centered around the materials in the webquest. In the webquest, there were instructions for the students to read and website links for them to get the information that they needed to accomplish the activities.

Some instructions were given at the beginning of the lesson to get them ready to participate in the webquest. After listening to the instructions, the students booted up their computers and went to the Webquest site to start their learning. All the steps of learning were there on the Webquest site. They were truly learning on their own. I was in the class just to facilitate their learning. They learned to read and followed the instructions. The preselected websites allowed students to elicit information from the Internet productively. They used the time for learning within their limited lesson time.

The webquest approach is an interesting way to learn. The information on their subject matter was available in various forms such as a YouTube video, an animation movie, interactive exercises, webpages, and an online Google Docs application document. Students were exposed to a wide range of information. It was great to let them realize that the Internet has a lot interesting sites where they could get knowledge and have fun in the process. These made the students to be interested in learning.

The webquest also helped students to think and to understand what they were reading. They had to extract the relevant information from their readings. In the process they had to compare and decide the best information to be used for their assignments. In this way students had the opportunity to practise their higher order thinking. It was also an exercise where students were given the opportunity to learn on their own. For me that gave them precious realization that they could learn on their own. They also learned to be self-reliant as they explored to learn in order to be able to accomplish their tasks.

Another plus point was my students learned about teamwork along the way. They helped one another to accomplish their tasks. I have added another activity which is making a short video presentation. Each group was provided a Flip camcorder to do the assignment. This activity was designed to reinforce their learning. It was also to get them to work together to make their group video presentation. The activities in this webquest have helped to learned to work together to solve problems. They also enabled students to practise the skills of utilizing the available information which were important to help them to become the 21st Century learners. I believe using webquests can help in preparing our students for the future by developing students’ thinking skills and increasing their knowledge.