A part of 6.1 Lightning Talk session
Ashley Waggoner Denton, Associate Professor, Teaching Stream, Psychology, FAS
Infographics present large amounts of information in a compact and easy to understand way, using texts, symbols, colours, and graphic visuals. The creation of an effective infographic requires students to draw on a wide range of skills, including information literacy, communication, and critical and creative thinking skills. In this session I will describe how I have used infographics in two different courses to meet specific course learning outcomes. In one course, students select a data set from the Government of Canada open data portal and create an infographic that answers an interesting question that they have about the data. In another course, students select a career that is relevant to psychology and create an infographic intended to inform other students about this career, including the activities and skills involved, how it connects to their psychology studies, and what steps they would need to take to prepare for this career. Both assignments follow the same basic set of instructions and involve a peer review component. They are also both graded using similar rubrics that evaluate the content (e.g., purpose, organization, clarity) and visual appeal (e.g., meaning) of the infographic. In this session, I will provide an overview of the instructions and rubrics I provide for the assignments, along with student examples and feedback. While students do require extra support to complete this assignment, compared to a traditional written report or presentation, they also tend to be more engaged, and the final products are more fun to grade.
Ashley, thanks for sharing your approach to using infographics with your students. I love that you emphasize the range of skills that these kinds of assignments foster for students, including communication, critical thinking, and so forth. The skills developed are also very transferable. I also applaud your use of peer review as part of the process you use — very powerful! I am curious what ways you are assessing this pedagogical approach to better understand its power? I am certain colleagues across many varied disciplines will find this session applicable!
Thanks so much, Carol! And great question, it would be really interesting to compare the learning outcomes of these types of assignments compared to more traditional reports/presentations. Right now I don’t have a good way of doing that, but something to think about!