Assignments

Collaborators: Tessa Withorn

A toolkit with various instructional materials to teach media and news literacy. Includes an online activity "Fairness and Blanace" where students watch a short video on journalistic standards and answer discussion questions. Then, students can take one or both interactive tutorials on "Lateral Reading" with a focus on fact-checking and/or "Evaluating Information" based on an information need.

In this hands on activity, students will find and compare/contrast news stories on a single current event/topical discussion to learn the importance of lateral reading and understand how bias can influence information production. 

Author: Nicole Murph
Collaborators: Shelby Hallman, Nataly Blas

Reading charts and infographics is part of everyday life, yet telling a story with data can be tricky. Luckily, data visualization is a skill that everyone can learn! Data visualization is the practice of translating information into a visual context, helping humans understand complex concepts and making it easier to identify patterns and uncover insights. In this workshop, learn the basics of designing data visualizations, selecting appropriate graph styles, and how to identify misleading data visuals.

Discipline: Multidisciplinary

Digital timelines enable us to tell stories visually by connecting non-linear moments: events, reactions, and experiences. This assignment includes a lesson plan and worksheet for teaching with timelines. Timelines work best when they are created as a project for a course, since they take time to develop.

Author: Cathy Meals
Collaborators: Faith Rusk, Meghan Kowalski

In this activity focused on evaluating sources, students respond to the question "What makes a source 'good'?" by collectively brainstorming a list of characteristics they should look for in evaluating a source, then using their list to evaluate different types of sources on the same topic (e.g., a scholarly article, an op-ed, and a news article). As a class, students discuss whether their source was "good" based on the class's list of characteristics and for which types of information needs or settings their source might be most appropriate.

Collaborators: Brooke Taxakis

How can we facilitate first-year student engagement with critical Framework concepts, especially in a one-shot class? This active learning activity is designed to teach source evaluation in a 50-minute class. The activity, which incorporates elements of problem-based learning and uses a flipped classroom approach, was added to our institution’s first-year experience course.

Discipline: Multidisciplinary

This syllabus is a sample for an online literature course. I created this sample around Victorian studies, but any literature subject is applicable. I've provided examples of online projects. The goal of a syllabus like this one is to introduce students to literature, making online objects, and utilizing open resources effectively.

Below is a link to a sample learning object:

https://ajthomp55.wixsite.com/lispractvanhelsing

Discipline: English

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