ASA TRAILS

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Assignment: Oral Presentation Debate Format: Social Problems

Debates are not a summary of author information. You should draw arguments from both the pro and con authors, the course text and reading, course films and discussion, the course website and Internet, and your own ideas. Include visuals (a poster, overhead transparency, or handout) to emphasize points and give oral citations to your sources.

Using Infographics to Learn and Communicate About Global Problems

Research papers have long been a staple of upper division sociology courses; however, this assignment combines sociological research with the creation and dissemination of a sociological infographic. An infographic is generally defined as data visualization with an emphasis on design, readability, and information usually containing pictures, graphs, and charts. In this semester-long assignment, students will select and research a global problem, create and design a data rich infographic, conduct peer review, write a reflection paper, and finally share their infographic publicly. The foundation of this assignment is student-directed sociological research, including the requirement to collect and interpret data, as well as engage with concepts and theories related to global sociology, wealth and poverty, and globalization. However, in a twist on the typical research paper, this assignment plays with emerging new media and digital arts to allow students to work on other aspects of content creation besides written work. Further, it helps develop digital proficiency in both content creation and content understanding. Lastly, this assignment helps students understand that their schoolwork can have an impact beyond the university since they are encouraged to share their finished infographic on social media, Tumblr, personal blog, or via e-mail with friends and family. Additionally, a public website was created to showcase all the students’ final infographics.

Presentation Projects: Papers, Poster, Reading Responses

Overview of projects on a variety of topics on the sociology of education.