INTRODUCTION

Europe is the second smallest of the world’s continents and is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east.

Do you know how many countries Europe has? Which are these countries, what language do they speak, their neighbours and what is the capital of each country?

Have you ever visited another country or dreamed about travelling to another country? Which one?

TASK

You have won a competition, and the prize is… a trip to your dream European country! You will present to your classmates the country you are going to visit; you will give them all the details but not its name.

• Your classmates will try to guess the country based on the information you will give to them. You will gain 1 point for each classmate that will guess right your country... since that means that you have presented your destination in the right way!
• You will also gain points for your correct guesses in you classmates presentations, 1 point for each correct guess.

PROCESS

1. Which is your destination?

All students in the class will take part in a draw, where they will randomly choose one of the countries of Europe. (This will be done so that each student has a different country).

2. Your presentation…

Your journey begins now. You need to look for information about this country.

• In which part of Europe is it located (Scandinavia, Central Europe, Baltic or somewhere else)?
• Which countries is it neighbouring?
• Which is its capital?
• How can you travel there (ship, train, plane)?

You can include any information you think it is relevant and will help your classmates to guess right.
Use a browser and a search engine like google to search for your information.
Use anything you want to better present your destination. Your goal is for your classmates to understand which country you are going to visit.
For your presentation you can use any tool you want:

• PowerPoint: https://www.microsoft.com/en-ww/microsoft-365/powerpoint?rtc=1 
• Google Slides: https://docs.google.com/presentation/u/0/ 
• Canva: https://www.canva.com/ 
• Prezi: https://prezi.com/signup?click_source=logged_element&page_location=above_fold&element_text=students&element_type=cta 

3. Be prepared for guessing!

Your classmates will also travel to a European country. Your goal is to identify the other destinations and gain points.
Whoever gets the most points is the winner.

Did you win? Congratulations! You know Europe and its countries. It is about time to learn about the countries on the other continents.

Didn't you win? Maybe it needed a little more study ... or research ... or a stronger memory ... In any case, you have learnt and had fun!

RESOURCES

Learn about Europe.

https://www.britannica.com/place/Europe
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan-European_identity
https://www.infoplease.com/atlas/europe

Learn about European countries.

https://www.isolatedtraveller.com/world-encyclopedia/list-of-all-countries-in-europe/
https://www.euro.who.int/en/countries
https://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/capitals_europe.htm
https://www.google.com/maps/@48.0995395,4.152024,4z

Learn about the European Union and the countries which are members.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_in_the_European_Union_by_population_within_city_limits
https://europa.eu/european-union/about-eu/countries/member-countries_en

Play online and learn!

https://online.seterra.com/en/vgp/3007
https://online.seterra.com/en/vgp/3225
https://online.seterra.com/en/vgp/3375
https://world-geography-games.com/en/flags_europe.html

CONCLUSION

Students will learn:

• The European countries and its capitals.
• The geographical location of each country in Europe.
• The area to which it belongs.
• The neighbours of the European countries.
• How to create a presentation.
• (optional) A few facts for the countries and its capitals, e.g., population.
• (optional) About the European Union and its members.
• (optional) European cities other than the capitals.

It is important for all the students to learn about the above, especially nowadays that we have so many economic, political, and scientific developments.

Students will develop/improve their:

• Research skills
• Structured thinking
• Presentation skills
• Competitiveness

Evaluation of learning achievements

In this section we will not dive very deep into the underlying educational theories about evaluation and testing: there’s too much out there than we could possibly cover in this small project report.

Instead, we want to concentrate on procedures that enable both students/pupils and their teachers to establish if the learning goals of the Webquest were achieved and, if so, to what extent. We recommend teachers make use of a combined evaluation procedure, that consists of:

1. Statements by learners (after being asked to do so)
   • telling what they learned about the subject (knowledge-oriented self-evaluation): now (after going through the Webquest) I know that …
   • telling what he/she learned about herself/himself (formative evaluation, in this case, diagnostic self-evaluation): now (after going through the Webquest) I know about myself that I …
     This pair of basic statements add up to a so-called learner report, in which the pupil/student reflects on what the Webquest brought him/her in terms of acquired knowledge and new personal views and attitudes concerning the subject.

   For instance:

   • ‘I learned that in medieval times the hygiene of people was hardly a concern which helped to let epidemic diseases like the Plague cause so many casualties’ Or:
   • ‘I learned the facts and I know the earth is warming, but I cannot understand why people were so stupid to pollute the world and let it warm up so much.
   • ‘I learned from the information about diseases that this subject is more appealing to me than I would expect in advance: maybe I should consider a medical career’. Or:
     ‘The Webquests confirms what I thought already: I could not care less about the climate and global warming. In fact, I thought it was all a hoax and I still do!’

   This kind of assessment seems more subjective than it actually is: in his standard work on testing and evaluation (and much more), simply called Methodology (1974), Prof. A.D. de Groot described how consistent the student’s self-evaluations appeared to be: when asked again after 5 or 10 years, their evaluation would almost be the same. De Groot advised teachers to use the learner report as a start for joint evaluations, striving for consensus between teacher and student/pupil about the learning outcomes and their value for the learner, but also compared with the learning objectives as stated in the curriculum.

2. The learning achievements are visible in the output produced by the students: it is physical evidence: reports, answers to questions asked in the Webquest, presentations, and performance during presentations (preferably recorded). The teacher completes an evaluation grid stating clearly what the learning outcomes for the student/pupil are. The categories in the grid can be modified by the teacher to cover more precisely the content of a Webquest.

   We advise teachers to use the grid to start a joint evaluation discussion, aiming at consensus or at least understanding between the teacher and the student/pupil about the learning outcomes: were they achieved (as planned in the curriculum and communicated before the Webquest started) and to what extent? To communicate the learning goals clearly before any learning activity starts, is a transparency requirement that is widely acknowledged in the educational community. The history of making learning objectives explicit goes back to the evaluation ‘Bible’ by Bloom, Hastings and Madaus: ‘Handbook on formative and summative evaluation of student learning’ (1971), a standard work that also served as inspiration for the earlier mentioned Prof. De Groot.

The procedure also applies when students/pupils have worked together on a Webquest. The teacher will ask questions about individual contributions: ‘What did you find? What part did you write? How did you find the illustrations? Who made  the final presentation?’

All the evidence (of learning efforts and outcomes plus joint evaluations) is preferably stored in the learning portfolio of the student, or in any other suitable storage system (folders with written or printed documents, online collection of files, etcetera ).

Changes in personal points of view and feelings are harder to value and here the consensus between teacher and student/pupil about experiences during the learning process provides essential insights.

The grid below gives an example of how the evaluation of the learning process and achievements can be shaped: what kind of reactions to the Webquest does the teacher expect and how valuable are they? Is the teacher capable to explain the value or score allocated to answers or presentations given by pupils? Does the pupil/student understand the evaluation outcomes, and does he/she agree? If an agreement (consensus is not possible, it is still the teacher who decides how to value the student’s work.

Please note that the text in the grid addresses the pupil/student directly: this is important and it is in fact a prerequisite for using such an evaluation grid: it is specifically meant to enable a discussion of learning results between teacher and student and not to communicate learning achievements of learners to others who had no direct role in the Webquest.

Evaluation Grid