What is a Treasure
Hunt?
A Treasure Hunt (sometimes called a Scavenger Hunt) is a website created
by a teacher to scaffold Internet research. The teacher selects websites
for the students to visit and writes questions to guide students as they
conduct research using the websites. The purpose of a Treasure Hunt is
to allow students to develop content knowledge about the subject being
studied in a controlled environment. Students can work independently or
in pairs to complete a Treasure Hunt. View the Treasure Hunt as another
way to allow students to discover information about the subject being
studied. It should be a part of a curriculum unit and not viewed as an
"add on." The Treasure Hunt should have a supporting role in
the overall curriculum.
Read this article about Treasure Hunts.
Why use a Treasure
Hunt?
A well designed Treasure Hunt will encourage students to think beyond
the obvious. Because the teacher has preselected the websites to be used,
a Treasure Hunt is a safe way to allow students to research on the Internet.
Additionally, having preselected websites will save valuable time when
the students are doing the research.
Key to the success of the Treasure Hunt are the questions written by the teacher. Students should be challenged to move beyond basic recall. The questions should encourage higher-order thinking and creative problem solving. Depending on the grade level of the students, there are times when it will be appropriate for there to not be a "set" correct answer to the questions.
Guiding
Questions
The questions developed by the teacher should include both knowledge/comprehension
and application/analysis questions to challenge the students and keep
them interested in the topic of the Treasure Hunt. Consider the developmental
level of your students when you write your Treasure Hunt questions. The
questions give the Treasure Hunt its' purpose. To keep the students interested
and on task you must provide engaging questions to guide them.
Knowledge/Comprehension Verbs (LoTi level 2)
- name
- define
- identify
- label
- list
- tell
- describe
- explain
- retell
- paraphrase
- summarize
- put in order
- construct
- illustrate
- determine
- conclude
- demonstrate
- make
- analyze
- categorize
- compare
- contrast
- differentiate
- infer
Not all Treasure Hunts are equal. Many Treasure Hunts are completely knowledge/recall based. If you are checking for reading comprehension, a Treasure Hunt with knowledge/recall questions is good. However, if you want to see if the students are developing a deeper understanding of a topic you must include application/analysis questions.
Here are a few examples of Treasure Hunts. Can you tell which are knowledge/recall based and which are application/analysis based?
Exploring
Fossils
Math
Scavenger Hunt
Battle
of The Alamo
Our
Rock and Roll Earth
Propaganda
Treasure Hunt
America's Freedom
Documents
Texas
Some Treasure Hunts are ... well, not good. Unintentionally, the creator of this Treasure Hunt has taught students how to plagiarize the work of others. It might have seemed like a good idea at the time, but giving students permission to cut and paste the answers is giving them the impression that this is a good research strategy. And we know that it is not.
There are four basic steps in creating a Treasure Hunt:
1. Decide on a unit of study.
2. Gather websites that support your unit and write research questions
for the websites.
3. Create the webpage. (Don't worry! You can download
a template here)
4. Have the webpage uploaded to the server by your Campus Instructional
Technologist.
Decide on a unit of study.
Think about your curriculum. Is there an area you feel needs to be "beefed"
up? Is there a topic your students stuggle with year after year? You are
the curriculum expert and only you can decide what the topic of your Treasure
Hunt will be. Science and Social Studies lend themselves to Treasure Hunts
very easily but you can choose any area you feel your students need some
extra help with.
Create the webpage.
These two actually go together. You will create the webpage while you are locating websites. The manual will help you as you create your webpage.
This is very important. The webpage you create will not be available for use until your CIT puts it on the web server. You will spend a lot of time creating this Treasure Hunt. Make sure you contact your CIT to discuss getting your Treasure Hunt uploaded to the web server.
Let's Get Started!!
We will be using Netscape Composer to create the Treasure Hunt. Although
it does not have all the functions of some of the more sophisticated webpage
composing software, it is free and it is NISD approved. It is a good piece
of software for the novice webpage designer. Your instructor will give
you a manual that we will refer to throughout this course. If you misplace
your manual, you can download another manual
here.
Credits
chest.jpg (Online Image). Available: http://office.microsoft.com/clipart/default.aspx
Date of Download: June 30, 2004.
Copyright 2004. Northside Independent School District. All Rights Reserved.