Applying IL to assignments...

In the Information Literacy assignment for week 2, I have already relooked and reworked the newspaper article assignment instructions for the module Microeconomics, to hone IL skills in students, albeit with some hand-holding, since these are first-year students at the polytechnic.

I intend to discuss this with colleagues and use this set of assignment instructions (perhaps with some modifcation if needed) for the new academic year in April 2010. I think the most important bit in reworking the assignment is realising that I need to let students know explicitly why they are doing an assignment! As such, the project objectives must be clearly articulated to students. In addition, they also need to know how the project objectives dovetail into course objectives.
 
As for the marking rubrics for this assignment, it might look something like this:
Breath of analysis (20%)
- Article selected incorporates at least three economic concepts
- Concepts are interrelated across different topics in both semester 1 and 2

Depth of analysis (60%)
- Ability to read text and select main ideas
- Restate textual concepts in own words
- Identify verbatim ideas that can be appropriately quoted
- Select information that provides evidence for the concept
- Recognise interrelationships among concepts and combines them into useful statements
- Draw conclusions based on information gathered
- Diagrams are used appropriately in explanation

Sources of information (10%)
- information sources are acknowledged using APA citation style
- provide a variety of formats as sources of information

Timeliness of submission (10%)
- project is submitted on time as scheduled