Developing Students’ Analytical and Data Presentation Skills Using Infographic Assignments in Principles of Macroeconomics and Economics of Immigration

This paper describes applied assignments designed to give students hands-on experience working with data. It develops students’ data analysis skills, critical thinking, and data presentation skills. There are three active-learning applications presented: two for students in undergraduate principles of macroeconomics and one for economics of immigration. In these assignments, students create an infographic documenting various macroeconomic indicators, or characteristics of the immigrant population. Students must think carefully about the visual presentation of quantitative estimates, consider what is the right graph type or style, the right scale, how to structure categories, and how to label them. The assignments can be assigned as group projects in larger classes, and all materials necessary for implementation in your course are available online. These include detailed instructions and guidelines for students, as well as suggested grading rubrics that you can utilize in your learning management system. These examples create a useful framework and will allow you to modify the criteria for application to different courses.