Lindsay Haddix

L551: Information Inquiry for Teachers

Prof. Annette Lamb

12/6/06

Educator Page

Center for Inquiry “Masks of the World” Educator Page

Webquest overview:

This webquest is meant to help students learn about cultural masks of people around the world. It focuses on five different geographic areas: Africa, Asia, Central and South America, North America, and Europe. It is meant as introduction to a mask-making project for an eighth grade art class. It can be adapted to fit different needs or class sizes.

Webquest audience and implications:

The school this quest is created for is the CFI School #2 which is part of the Indianapolis Public School system. It is unique magnet school that has a curriculum that is focused on information inquiry. The teachers at the school are very interested in using webquests in their classroom but are too busy to create them themselves and the school does not employ a webmaster. It is a prefer opportunity for a student-librarian because the student will gain some collaborative experience and the school will gain a new webquest.

The Center for Inquiry School # 2 is comprised of 286 kindergarten through eighth grade students. It offers a fifteen to one student to teacher ratio which is very good for an urban school. The eighth grade class is comprised of sixteen students. The small class sizes allow for more teacher and student interaction. The school demographics are diverse, but the majority of the school population is African-American. The magnet programs` goals can help explain the mission of the school. The IPS magnet programs main goals are, “to promote and maintain diversity; to provide a specialized curriculum, or unique instructional approach; and to improve the academic achievement of all students participating in a magnet program (

The “Masks of the World” webquest is in touch with the goals of the IPS magnet program for several reasons:

  1. It represents various peoples and cultures of the world, which promotes diversity.
  2. It is based upon a collaborative effort between a student-librarian and a CFI art teacher.
  3. It promotes and encourages a collaborative and group dynamic in the classroom.
  4. It uses information inquiry as its model and focus.

Role of Information Inquiry:

The model I chose to use for the search is Jamie McKenzie’s Research cycle because it seems suitable for this particular project. His model asks students to use high level questions throughout the process that focus on Why, Which, and How. His model also places an emphasis on creative thought and discourages judgment. It is important for all classmates to participate throughout the process and support all learning styles and ideas. I found his model to be suitable because it is fairly simple in that it does not involve many steps and felt an art class would be able to learn from it without becoming bogged down in the process. I learned about his model on his website, which can be found at:

The webquest involves questioning before, during, and after the activity, which is helpful in allowing students to process their knowledge and think about new directions to take in art creation. It is a unique lesson for learning about art history and finding ideas for the students` own mask. The different resources are helpful for all types of learners, which is important since this particular class is inclusive.

Content Standards: 8th grade Indiana Visual Arts

  • 8.1.1 Analyze who, what, when, where, and why a work was made; and the relationship of art to the historical, environmental, technological, and political contexts of the culture in which it was created
  • 8.1.3 Identify ways in which artists from culturally diverse backgrounds have used personal iconography and life experiences in their artwork.
  • 8.2.1 Identify and be familiar with a range of works from Western and non-Western cultures identifying culture, style, and aspects from the historical context of the work.
  • 8.2.2 Identify common stylistic features from art of one culture or time period.

Information Literacy Standards:

  • Standard 1: The student who is information literate accesses information efficiently and effectively.
  • Standard 3: The student who is information literate uses information accurately and creatively.
  • Standard 9: The student who contributes positively to the learning community and to society is information literate and participates effectively in groups to pursue and generate information.

Connection to the professional literature:

I used the course page to find a lot of my information for designing the webquest. I searched on for webquest and found the Bernie Dodge webquest guidelines to be helpful in figuring out the mission and components of a webquest. Other links from eduscapes that were helpful were the Teacher Tap and assessment links. I used rubistar to create my rubric because it was easy to customize and had many different options for a diverse array of projects. I also explored some of the webquests that were posted on eduscapes for ideas. I found it very helpful to see other sites because it was the first time I had ever created a webquest.

Collaboration with Daphne Draa:

Working on a webquest for the first was less daunting because I had Daphne to bounce ideas off and ask for her personal preferences and opinions. I started out asking her some general questions and thought of more as the process evolved. She gave me a lot of advice and insight that I had not thought to consider.

Daphne has the knowledge of her students which helped me to adapt my quest to their learning style and personal experience. For example, what I thought was an excellent idea for a scenario hit too close to home for some of her students. I thought it would be neat to have the class take a trip to a far-off place in an airplane and crash in the middle of nowhere. She thought this could be frightening to students since some of them have relatives serving in Iraq. I realized I needed to rethink my idea and I communicate d it to her to get her opinion. She also cautioned me that she had some students with learning disabilities. Because of this input I included a link to Kidsearch that provides the ability to do a visual search. Students can use this to find articles and information on all the geographic areas.

I also received guidance from an experienced teacher who knows how she wants to evaluate her students. I used her ideas for evaluation to post on my quest. Her guiding question and input helped me see what she was looking for in a webquest and also allowed me to ask her for more advice.

Overall I found the experience collaborating with Daphne to be very positive and rewarding. She was very easy to communicate with electronically which was most beneficial to my needs at this busy time of year. I hope I can take this experience and improve upon my skills as an information specialist.

Optional videos to introduce the webquest:

I thought these could be helpful in framing the unit. They could be shown to the whole class as group or could be viewed during the search process. I thought they could be beneficial to students with learning disabilities’ because it gives them a visual representation of various cultures. I searched on the CFI school catalog for videos, but did not find any; however, I did find two short and relevant videos on that are available at Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library branches. If you are interested in showing either one I am sure your School Media Specialist could arrange to get them for your class on an interlibrary loan.

Videos:

Masks and face coverings
Glenview, IL: Crystal Productions, 1970.
Call Number: / VHS 731.75 MAS

21 min.

Summary: Provides a good explanation from masks all over the world and how they are used. It is a little old, but still seems like a valuable resource.

Locations: Indiana School for the Blind, IMA Resource Center, Roncalli High School Library

Masks from many cultures
Aspen, Co. : Crystal Productions, c1992.
Call Number: / VHS 731.75 MAS

20 min.

Locations: Irvington Branch Library, Eiteljorg Museum Library, IMA Resource Center, Indiana School for the Blind

"Includes images of over 100 masks which are combined with sequences of dances and festivals where masks are worn. Among the masks presented are examples from New Guinea, Bali, China, Tibet, Japan, Korea, Africa, Mexico, Guatemala, Bolivia, as well as a variety of masks by North American Indians."--Container.
VHS format.