Strategies for using WQ in classroom . Daniela and Andrés.

Strategies:

From a teacher education standpoint, WebQuests respond to a different view of the English methods component, specifically within the teachability nucleus.

This new idea (shared by their other colleagues at the Faculty) posits that students are learning not just the language,

but ideas about the language and about teaching. In this context,

learning to critically find information is a crucial skill that prospective teachers need to develop to guide their students.

-The use of WebQuests has also allowed us to engage in discussions with our students and other teacher educators

about what it means to be an English teacher in this new century.

We believe that the new educational needs of this century are inviting teachers to rethink their craft,

moving from being information suppliers to becoming “facilitator[s] of the students’ learning”

-WebQuests provided us with an entry point to discuss research in our classes. We argue that the focus on inquiry that Dodge [14]

and others have described in their work on WebQuests also provides a framework that one could equate with elements of developing a research project.

For instance, the websites would represent data sources, while the process would resemble the data analysis procedures.

The presentation of one’s research findings would find its equivalent in the creation of the actual task,

whereas the conclusion could be analogous to the discussion of future lines of research.

Therefore, WebQuests became a very useful

tool to break down elements of research and become our students acquainted with these elements before they enroll in the research methods components in our program.