Suffice to say
that broad based thematic projects such as space, dinosaurs, weather,
the undersea world . . . . . are no longer appropriate in the classroom,
unless the students are focused around specific questions or specific
aspects of the topic/theme using clever questioning strategies (Bloom/Socratic)
which are used to build good conceptual understanding.
A Microquest is
an inquiry learning process based around a clever question that uses,
as its information resource, only one or two relevant web sites/pages.
Students are given between 40-50minutes to create a presentation that
answers the question asked and they then present their findings in the
format suggested by the question. Microquests are based on the idea
of WebQuests developed by Bernie Dodge. For a list of WebQuests go here.
The students are
given 30-50 minutes to prepare a presentation (see here
for presentation formats), to demonstrate their understanding of the
concept they have investigated. Their presentation should take somewhere
between 3-5 minutes at the most. Students in the class are then allowed
to ask the presenters three questions. There are three correct
answers to the questions being asked:
1. We have no idea
but we will do our best to find out and report back to you tomorrow
morning.
2. We think the
answer is **** but we will do some more research and get back to you
tomorrow morning.
3. The answer is
**** and this can be seen by using this reference ****
