Designing Authentic Assignments to Engage Students

This session offers strategies to empower participants to design authentic research assignments that engage students and encourage the development of critical thinking and information literacy skills. The presenters will share and discuss their collaboration at Fairfield University to design an authentic assignment on the topic of the regulation of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) for an honors seminar course that would incorporate information literacy skills.

• Anita Fernandez, studied Music and Biology at the University of Michigan and then earned her Ph.D in Genetics at the University of Wisconsin. As a postdoctoral fellow at NYU she studied genes important for development in animals, and in 2008 she joined the faculty at Fairfield University in Fairfield, CT where she teaches General Biology, Genetics, Developmental Biology, and a seminar called “Genetics, Ethics and Society”.
• Joan Clark, studied History and Secondary Education at the University of Connecticut and earned her M.L.S. at Southern Connecticut State University. She has been a reference librarian and information literacy instructor at Sacred Heart University, University of New Haven and Fairfield University where she collaborated with her presenter on assignment design for the Genetics seminar course. She is currently Reference and Instruction Librarian at the U. S. Coast Guard Academy.