Creating an Infographic in a Social Work Course: A Student’s Perspective from Danielle Davis

Posted By Laurel Hitchcock on Oct 9, 2018

Last year, Dr. Nathalie P. Jones, from the Department of Social Work at Tarleton State University, wrote a blog post about her experience with a tech-meditated assignment for her social work courses – creating an infographic.  She frequently uses technology in her classrooms to help students improve their digital literacy skills, and specifically uses infographics as tools for digital storytelling.  As a follow-up to Dr. Jones’ post, I asked one her students, Danielle Davis, to share her thoughts on the assignment, what it was like to create an infographic, and how the knowledge and skills from the assignment might be incorporated in her future role as a social worker. Here are Danielle’s responses to my questions:

What were your initial reaction to the infographic assignment?

I was very hesitant when Dr. Jones initially discussed the infographic assignment in our service learning course. It was the second week of my social work undergraduate program, and I remember wondering if anyone else was as confused as I felt in that moment. I was worried about not being able to complete the assignment according to the grading rubric. I had never created an infographic before, however, I was willing to try. The infographic assignment allowed me the opportunity to be creative and share the information learned about working with vulnerable populations. Being able to use my creative side in an assignment was very appealing.

How did your reaction change over the semester?          

Over the semester my reaction to the assignment changed entirely. As we worked on the various steps in the assignment, I started to gain a better understanding about the importance of an infographic and how they can be used. The infographic assignment ended up being my favorite assignment. I enjoyed being able to take a social work issue that mattered, build the infographic that reflected real statistics, and then share the information in Twitter to a large, public audience. I was amazed that people from all over the nation could come together in one place on social media and share information about social work by using infographics.