Friday, February 23, 2024

Infographics and How We Learn

Today I started a file to store the infographics I've been creating for my Foundations of Worship class.  I've had 3 assignments now.  They're not exactly sketches, although I don't have qualms about putting them in that file.  But it seems better to give them their own file, now that I have three of them.

I've created three of them:  a lectionary season wheel, an infographic that explains how we came to worship on Sundays (the first Christians were Jews, after all, who likely added a communion-like observance to the end of Shabbat observance), and an infographic that explains baptism.

It's an interesting assignment, both from an artistic angle and a teaching/learning angle.  Let me be clear that we're not being graded on our artistic skill, which is good.  I've been happy with what I've produced, although it's not always matched what I had in mind.  The lectionary wheel was closest to what I had in mind when I started:




For the infographic on Sunday worship, I didn't even have much in mind for the graphic part of the assignment.  I added some sunrise/sunset colors and a drawing to suggest Shabbat and called it done, even though it's more info than graphic:




I'm not going to include the baptism infographic since it hasn't been graded, and I don't want to risk that the antiplagiarism software would flag it if I post it here before my professor grades it.

From a teaching/learning perspective, it's been interesting.  For the most part, we're condensing what we've read into key points, so it lets our professor see if we understand the reading.  Even if someone had absolutely no sketching or doodling skills, one could do this assignment, either by using fewer illustrations or by collaging.  And of course, there's now a whole world of computer generated stuff that one could create or find, if one had computing skills.

Could I use the idea of an infographic in my English classes that I teach?  It's obvious how I could use infographics in Literature classes.  But could I use them in a Composition class?  Let me ponder this.

No comments: