"Little Rock Nine, Integration 0?" is a WebQuest -- an inquiry-based activity that uses Internet resources, collaboration, and built-in support to promote critical thinking. Little Rock Nine breaks new ground in the role and group phases by more clearly laying out strategies for promoting transformation of knowledge (the heart of a WebQuest.) You can find out more about WebQuests on our WebQuest page or even make your own using Filamentality.

Tips for Using this WebQuest
Many teachers are becoming increasingly versed in creating and using WebQuests. For those new to the strategy, your role as teacher is to act as coach, supporter, facilitator, and, as David Jonassen suggests, "perturber." As a learner-centered activity, helping students move through their own cognitive processes will keep most teachers busy. Emphasis should be placed on making connections among prior knowledge and new learning, on accenting process over making the one true product. Yet, because demonstrable learning is the goal of every classroom activity, a rubric has been supplied that teachers and students may use or modify as desired.

Ideas for Allocating Time
Little Rock Nine, like most WebQuests, offers a framework that teachers and students should modify based on local factors such as curricular needs, time available, access to the Internet, reading ability, motivation, etc. These issues then determine the key variable: how to group students into roles.

One student could conceivably take on every role in a WebQuest and complete it working solo. While possible, this isn't optimal because part of a WebQuest's power is having students discuss and debate the answer to the central Question based upon their areas of expertise. New perspectives and unanticipated objections can create the cognitive "a-ha's" that make learning fun. Additionally, the time required for one student to complete a WebQuest would make it a semester-long independent study.

On the other end of the continuum, one whole class could take on only one role, then work collaboratively via email, videoconferencing, blogs, whatever with other classrooms adopting the other roles to complete the group solution. If a main goal is collaboration and time is limited, Little Rock Nine is best used by 3 - 6 classrooms of students over the course of a few days.

The middle road, and perhaps the ideal, is to have students or pairs of students work from the perspective of each role. If the subject matter and reading levels are challenging, as is often the case when using Web-based materials, then pairs of students might lend needed support. An added benefit is that if one class divided itself into 3 - 6 whole groups (comprising each of the six roles), then multiple solutions would be created that could be compared, thus getting even more learning from the activity. From past experience, completing a WebQuest in this manner can take between 1 - 3 weeks depending on computer access, student experience and homework assignments.

In summary, choosing how to implement any WebQuest requires reflection on many factors as well as determining which key learning goals to promote: individual research and thinking? collaboration? appreciation of diversity? technology use? face-to-face skills? etc. Use the framework, keep the focus learning-centered, and explore the process as you go.

Special note about "Transformation Builder" forms
"Little Rock Nine, Integration 0?" uses a series of interactive forms called "Transformation Builders" to prompt higher level thinking during the role and group solution phases of the WebQuest. This feature is designed to promote cognitive thinking and lay the groundwork for documenting ideas and solutions.

It's understood that no interactive form can replace a mind engaged in self-directed questioning, however, experience has shown that many students need an extra boost when it comes to completing critical thinking tasks. To this end, Transformation Builders and guidelines for choosing them were created. Explore the graphic below for a quick look.

Click on the circled cognitive skills to see
the related "Transformation Builder" form.

Your main role is facilitation. The support pages are available to students, but most likely teachers will need to process the background information for each strategy to help students with the concepts. More examples and simplifying terminology for each audience will be needed because no online activity can hope to know how to connect and communicate with your students as well as you can.

Finally, a word should be said about the output of the Transformation Builder forms. A first try will probably generate something that seems hopelessly garbled and cryptic. Let students know the idea is to use the form repeatedly to smooth out the wording. Once the wording is clear, they can assess whether it expresses their thinking accurately. Ultimately, the form will generate a first, not a final, draft. Students can save, print, or cut and paste the contents of the small pop up window to polish it.

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