Eve Dillingham

(Eve -- this is good stuff and I think fits in naturally with the arc that we will have to maintain to work in the LS objectives (ie that the student will be formulating a research statement and doing some basic research) as seen in the current LS 101 course this expands the current end of course project in a positive way that could be showcased in Katie's portfolio unit/idea. Now to come up with rubrics! --Chris Lott)

Proposal for Information Literacy Activity: Presentation-Domain Knowledge

Explanation

Often we are asked to present our knowledge to others, but there are several factors to consider before communicating that knowledge. Those factors include:

• fully understanding concepts in order to formulate knowledge contents into a message
• understanding whether we are persuading or informing
• identifying the audience (who are they, do they need background information, are they likely to be in agreement, neutral, or in opposition to the message, how are they best able to receive the message)
• identifying the best channel to communicate the message (face-to-face, audio, visual, kinesthetic, etc.)

Activity outline:

Given a research topic or area of interest the student has already selected, the student will decide the objective for passing the knowledge of this topic/area to an audience. The objective will determine:

1. what knowledge the student will include in the message
2. whether the student should best use persuasion or simply inform
3. who the audience will be
4. what technology will be used to deliver the message

Assessment:

• Rubric of students’ effectiveness in determining factors for delivering topic/area of interest that meets objective.
• Rubric of product that demonstrates effective implementation of objective.

Example of Student Activity:

1. Message Contents
   • Facts about global environmental trends
   • Impact of trends over time
   • predicted impacts of trends
   • current legislative agenda
   • legislative representatives and their stands on global warming
2. Persuasive message delivery
3. Audience Profile
   • Ages: 28 – 60
   • Gender: Male/Female
   • Socioeconomic status: middle class
   • Race and ethnic identity: multi-racial, mostly Northern European-American
   • Pre-knowledge: mostly none to some
   • Agree/Neutral/Oppose: mostly agree
   • Local audience; however, Web presence of information is required
4. Multimedia visual aids for local presentation and Webpage with multimedia for Web presence.

(Should part of the above activity also include a mechanism(s) to continue the conversation generated around the presentation - a way for the the audience to respond? Christen Bouffard)

Student will create follow-up Web presence. The site will contain pictures, video and other related media documenting the presentation and presenting the message. It will also contain contact information/links to legislators.