Why I love teaching infographics

I'll be binge grading and writing in the next few weeks, so don't expect a lot of updates. I'm uploading this post just to share my joy. I love giving students feedback on their work —although I loathe transforming that feedback into a grade,— particularly when it involves praising what they've done. My life gets easier when they do a nice job.

The students in my intro to graphic design (100-level) and intro to infographics and visualization (300-level) courses at the University of Miami have just turned in their latest projects, and I'm delighted with the results. On the left you can see an infographic about newsroom diversity submitted a few minutes ago by infographics student Monica Herndon. Below, a book jacked designed by sophomore Janelle Rodríguez, who's in my intro to graphic design class. Fortunately, these are not outliers. There's still a lot that can be improved and edited (I'm not fond of wrapping text around photos, for instance,) but the average quality of the exercises I've seen so far is pretty good.

Footnote: If you're a professor, you may want to follow the #partyLikeAProfessor hashtag on Twitter.