Abstract:

We explain our experience with project-based learning, as innovation teaching project, for a course of Infography applied to Health Journalism. In our course, we had 50 students of Journalism, but this one was an optative course. For this reason, we realized our students had different motivations, skills and knowledges. Then it was not easy to teach a specialized course about reporting in health journalism using a visual (infographic) language.

It is well known that keeping the student interest and attention at high levels during the course, is a difficult task. And this difficulty rise due different factors. One of the most important is the difference level of knowledge that the students attains during their studies. We found different academic profiles between our students, but also a broad gap in digital tools for newspapers design. However, the most important problem was how to match different motivations between them.

The lecturer's role must be the integration of all students in the same learning aim. Its level of knowledge and its interpretation of the subject may transform the lesson in a very accessible and effective one, but not always it is possible in a teaching environment with so many gaps between students and for teaching practical courses.

We have found that organizing the course on projects may reduce the differences between the level of knowledge, skills and motivation of students by increasing cooperation, communication, and by permitting them to self-organize in work teams. Another positive effect of teamwork is the motivational dimension of the above mentioned process. Complexity may arise in natural ways even in the most "simple" projects; so it is a non-declared motivational factor when came up gradually.

Keywords:

Infography, project-based learning, health journalism, data journalism, data visualization, visual storytelling.