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Publications and Research Queensborough Community College

2020

Collaborative Assignments and Projects: Interdisciplinary Collaborative Assignments and Projects: Interdisciplinary

Collaborative Assignments and Projects: Case Studies in Collaborative Assignments and Projects: Case Studies in

Information Literacy and Higher Order Thinking Skills Information Literacy and Higher Order Thinking Skills

Leslie Ward CUNY Queensborough Community College

Trikartikaningsih Byas CUNY Queensborough Community College

Alisa Cercone CUNY Queensborough Community College

Barbara L. Lynch CUNY Queensborough Community College

Kathleen Wentrack CUNY Queensborough Community College

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CHAPTER 5

Collaborative Assignments and ProjectsInterdisciplinary Collaborative Assignments and Projects: Case Studies in Information Literacy and Higher Order Thinking SkillsLeslie Ward, Trikartikaningsih Byas, Alisa Cercone, Barbara L. Lynch, and Kathleen Wentrack

IntroductionTechnology influences how we acquire and apply knowledge. Incorporating technol-ogy in higher education has brought many benefits, especially since technology has become an integral part of most students’ lives. However, along with the benefits, the hyper-technology era also poses serious challenges: cognitive overload and copyright infringements.1 With the internet dominating how information is created, disseminated, acquired, and consumed, it is important to teach students how to best navigate the myriad of sources available to them while also stressing ethical approaches to creat-ing and using the information. The future demands critical thinkers who possess “a constellation of life skills that are necessary for full participation in our media-saturated, information rich society”2 and who are media-literate and possess the communication competencies and the ability to critically access, analyze, evaluate, and communicate information in a variety of forms and media.3 Accordingly, colleges and universities

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must teach students to evaluate information for its verity, make responsible choices, and properly attribute pertinent sources. In addition, higher education institutions need to make students consider their conduct on social media knowing they are leaving a digital footprint behind and develop an awareness that an audience—other than their instructor and classmates—exists and will read the information they share. Kitsantas and Dabbagh proposed that teachers develop students’ self-regulated learning habits to empower them to take responsibility for their own learning while respecting the opinions and work of others.4

The Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) proposed ten teaching and learning practices that “have been widely tested and have been shown to be beneficial for college students from many backgrounds,”5 called high-impact practices (HIPs). Collaborative Assignments and Projects, one of the original ten (currently 11) HIPs, is the focus of this chapter. Collaborative Assignments and Projects “combines two key goals: learning to work and solve problems in the company of others, and sharpening one’s own understanding by listening seriously to the insights of others, especially those with different backgrounds and life experiences.”6 Collaborative Assignment and Projects can take various forms, from “study groups within a course, to team-based assignments and writing, to cooperative projects and research.”7

Queensborough Community College (QCC) is one of the seven community colleges of the City University of New York (CUNY). Located in Queens, the most diverse borough in New York City, QCC reflects this community, serving over 16,000 students who come from more than 120 countries and speak over seventy languages. Most students also fit what the National Center for Education Statistics defines as nontraditional students, in that they delay enrollment into postsecondary education, attend college part-time, work full-time, are financially independent thus not eligible for financial aid, have dependents other than a spouse, are single parents, or do not have a traditional high school diploma.8 In their efforts to assist and enhance student learning, Queensborough’s faculty engages in developing and implementing various pedagogical innovations. One unique practice at Queensborough is Students Working in Interdisciplinary Groups (SWIG), a HIP that falls within the AAC&U designation of Collaborative Assignments and Projects, which incorporates collaboration with library faculty as an integral component to student learn-ing. This chapter will explain the SWIG pedagogy and process, faculty collaboration with the QCC library, its replicable model, case studies, and assessment.

Students Working in Interdisciplinary Groups (SWIG)SWIG developed out of the Digital Storytelling (DST) project at Queensborough that began in the 2009–2010 academic year. As technology changed and our pedagogy devel-oped, we renamed this initiative Students Working in Interdisciplinary Groups (SWIG), which more accurately describes our projects and allows for a diverse group of web tools and platforms as the collaboration space (Byas 2012). In 2013 we formed the SWIG leadership team, comprised of experienced faculty members who provide training and assist other faculty who are new to the HIP. In addition to the SWIG-led training sessions, faculty also participate in workshops on course design and reflection writing offered

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through the QCC Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning. SWIG faculty also actively participate in local, regional, and national discipline-specific conferences, as well as pedagogy-centered conferences with organizations such as the Community College Humanities Association and the Two-Year College Association.

SWIG faculty design projects to bring students from courses in different disciplines to use technology to collaborate and exchange ideas, often asynchronously, while learning to recognize and apply different disciplinary lenses in their thinking. By bringing two or more interdisciplinary cohorts together to create a project, SWIG fulfills some of the college’s educational goals. Students must negotiate with each other through a wiki to create both the form and the content for the project. Secondly, the contact with members of another discipline encourages students to understand the methodology, vocabulary, and insights of one to two other disciplines through experiencing how members of other disciplines work through the challenges of completing the shared assignment. SWIG assignments move the classes from a teacher-centered to a student-centered space, where peers are the audience for learning and dialogue. In completing the SWIG assignments, students acquire fundamental, discipline-specific skills as well as twenty-first-century competencies, including group collaborations, visual and information literacy, and crit-ical thinking.

Figure 5.1SWIG process and methodology.

A SWIG project joins students from two or more classes to collaborate using an online collaboration space, currently the wiki or group functions in Blackboard, the official learning management system (LMS) of the City University of New York (see figure 5.1). Members post their work on their group wiki, which other members read

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and edit. They repeat this “mutual gift-giving”9 process until the project is complete. The exchange is called “gift-giving” because the term highlights the fact that the exchange of research among the group members provides deeper inquiry, a more comprehensive product, as well as a shared workload. Students offer gifts that could be textual or multimedia, and in offering their gift, they must explain the reason for the gift. These text or media offerings to fellow students and collaborators must be formally researched and attributed using accurate citation methods.10 In this way, a SWIG assignment makes students practice information literacy. To facilitate the development of these information literacy skills, SWIG teams, in collaboration with the emerging technology librarian, have created a SWIG LibGuide (see figure 5.2a) to assist students in this process.

This SWIG LibGuide teaches students the concepts of copyright and fair use (see figure 5.2b), appropriate websites to obtain information and multimedia gifts, the impor-tance of keeping track of the information they gather, and the strategies to document the gifts they offer. Many faculty schedule a library workshop to help students use the SWIG LibGuide to complete their assignment.

Figure 5.2aSWIG LibGuide home page.

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Figure 5.2bSWIG LibGuide copyright page.

SWIG uses both meanings of ethos: ethics and place. As a practice of ethics, SWIG assignments help students avoid plagiarism. Plagiarism, the original sin of academia, continues to plague both students and teachers; being proactive rather than reactive provides a better way to address plagiarism. Rosamond suggested that instead of punish-ing plagiarism, we might better use our time creating norms of citation between the students and teachers.11 Wood suggested that by helping students have a fully authentic relationship with their own work product, educators could show students that what they produce has value.12 SWIG, through the creation of online communities, helps students connect with the idea of themselves as authors. With the assistance of librarians, students enrolled in SWIG sections get detailed instruction on citation styles and Google Advanced Image Search to find Creative Commons sources that are free to use or share.

Moreover, SWIG is a place where students and faculty create and share a commu-nity. Community spaces create a sense of reciprocity in which people give and take as the need arises.13 In line with constructivist learning theory, especially the Online Collaborative Learning Theory,14 community learning not only teaches content, but also helps put learning within a social context. Modeling after Freire’s reacculturation, Bruffee argued that students and instructors need to create a comprehensive learning environment through collaboration.15 With the help of the embedded librarian, the idea

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that proper citation is a norm of the larger external disciplinary knowledge community can be introduced. Thus, a SWIG assignment acculturates students into the concept of community where they learn citation as a means of authorial acknowledgement to avoid plagiarism.

SWIG employs two additional critical pedagogical elements: integrative learning and a scaffolded reflection cycle (see figure 5.3). Integrative learning provides students with the tools to connect concepts, experiences, and skills to understand complex issues or challenges and to create new knowledge. This type of learning is facilitated and assessed through SWIG’s use of a scaffolded reflection cycle, in which students are guided to make connections between their lives, other disciplines, and the course they are currently taking. This process is based on John Dewey’s reflection cycle that makes learning more visible to students.16 The pre- and post-reflection activities provide snapshot moments of a student’s knowledge and experience, whereby a student’s trans-formation through the acquisition and integration of new knowledge via the disci-pline-specific assignment can be assessed. But more importantly, reflection questions are designed so that students become cognizant of their own learning, which can then be applied in new situations.17

Figure 5.3Reflection cycle.

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LibraryThe Kurt R. Schmeller Library at QCC has the complex task of addressing the various demographics of users. While serving the needs of over 400 full-time faculty members with traditional resources that include over 340,000 books and 110 databases, the library strives to “provide the knowledge and technology resources to enhance learning.”18 This goal aligns with the pedagogical demands of SWIG projects that require students to engage with a higher level of information processing for their projects. In coordination with the course instructor, the librarian merges knowledge of the library’s resources with the course goals, offers services including a customized LibGuide and multiple library information literacy sessions, and enrolls as either a co-instructor or embedded librarian within the Blackboard component of the class. Thus, the librarian becomes a familiar and reliable presence for students and faculty.

For students, the LibGuide acts as an introduction to the library’s resources by provid-ing a basic understanding of the types of resources they will be using in their projects. It includes tabs on locating media such as photographs, videos, and music and informa-tion on copyright and fair use, along with links to sites that explain citation styles, with additional links to library-created guides. The LibGuide is designed as a gateway because many of the skills SWIG projects require are, in fact, tools that can be applied to later aspects of their education and life. For faculty, the LibGuide acts as a central space to locate resources for teaching their SWIG assignment or project. Additionally, the library offers support on publishing work that includes identifying and avoiding predatory jour-nals, using open access materials, and utilizing the CUNY institutional repository.

Figure 5.4SWIG activities in relation to Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy and ACRL Framework. Modified from Obiageli Sneed, “Integrating Technology with Bloom’s Taxonomy,” TeachOnline, May 9, 2016, https://teachonline.asu.edu/2016/05/integrating-technology-blooms-taxonomy/.

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The SWIG librarian takes the concept of the embedded librarian beyond the tradi-tional ideas of information literacy and service. Since the SWIG projects contain digi-tal or online components, the librarian must consider how searching and evaluating resources applies to all relevant sources (print or digital) to address the needs of the students and the project. This is especially relevant to locating and citing various media, understanding copyright and fair use, and knowing how to integrate said media into a non-text-based project. This requires a multifaceted approach due to its use of the Applying, Analyzing, and Evaluating components of Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy as well as an understanding of the frames “Authority Is Constructed and Contextual,” “Informa-tion Creation as a Process,” and “Research as Inquiry” of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Framework19 (see figure 5.4). To accomplish this, multiple information literacy sessions take place.

It is important, however, that librarians specifically highlight searching and evaluat-ing as the primary goal for the information literacy sessions. The librarians must begin with the ACRL Framework’s “Searching as Strategic Exploration” frame. Students learn that before searching, they must consider the search terms, their use, and the context in which they search for them. For example, in a SWIG project that engages English and public health, students come to understand that searching for the word depression will bring back results on the medical condition as well as on the Great Depression. To avoid this, they must carefully choose which resources they wish to search (a health database rather than a humanities database) as well as modifying the search terms they use. The librarian can also use mind mapping or brainstorming activities in conjunction with consulting reference sources to encourage students to define their terms before beginning searching and narrowing their topic.

Students must also consider the use of words beyond their context when searching for digital resources. Keywords take on more depth of meaning, such as metaphors, especially when searching for images. They must consider how they imagine depression looks in their minds versus how they want to portray depression when creating a visual work. To help them do this, the librarian can incorporate an activity that engages with visual literacy, such as having students find an unnamed image and then discussing the words that they used to locate it.

Finally, “Authority Is Constructed and Contextual” becomes a continuous theme in the library sessions as well as in the SWIG project as a whole. Because students are approaching the same topic from different arenas, they will be encountering informa-tion that has been framed not only by subject content, but also by bias. To address this, librarians need to teach students to evaluate and cite the information they find. One example of an exercise that has been shown to be engaging is to have students analyze a biased or manipulated source, either a journal article or an image, and ask the following questions: Who wrote it, why did they write it, who was it written for, how old is it, is it accurate, and what kind of information do you need? If students are able to answer these questions, they will be better able to identify bias or manipulation, regardless of content understanding. They will also be able to create the proper citation for the work.

In SWIG projects, and other high-impact practices, the library takes on a particularly significant role as a communal space where all students can meet and collaborate. This is an important factor for institutions where access to resources is at a premium, such as

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community colleges. The library’s resources go beyond the books and databases needed to complete necessary research, to study space and technology such as computers, Wi-Fi, and expensive software that might not be easily accessible elsewhere. The library acts as an equalizer, allowing all users to develop higher order thinking skills without the fear of being excluded (see figure 5.4).

Case StudiesBelow are examples of SWIG projects that show collaborations between different disci-plines. The SWIG collaboration model can be adapted to any interdisciplinary part-nership, which helps break down academic silos, allowing faculty across disciplines to collaborate and demonstrate the interconnectedness between disciplines for students. These highly textured and multilayered projects support and encourage critical thinking as described in Bloom’s Extended Digital Taxonomy (see figure 5.4). In each case, assis-tance from the library was crucial for the projects to function properly. Throughout all SWIG projects, the library provided key support for students with developing research and information management skills, as well as legal and ethical considerations when procuring images.

Scavenger Hunt: English 101 and Art History 101The materials for the Scavenger Hunt project, a collaboration between English 101 and Art History 101, include a PowerPoint presentation containing thirty-five to forty-five artworks and objects selected by the instructors and on view in New York City museums. The English students initiated the collaboration by each selecting an object, writing a “naïve” ekphrastic description of it and posting the description, without illustration or the name of the object, on a wiki page. Then the art history students, in a “scavenger hunt,” identified an object from the description, added the image from the PowerPoint presentation to the original wiki post, and gave feedback on the English students’ writ-ing. This is the process by which students chose their objects and partnerships. The art history students then wrote a formal analysis of the object, using a visual analysis grid established for assessing the form and materials of an art object, then conducted and integrated research into a paper. This text was added to the wiki for the English students to read and provide comments (or “gifts,” in the SWIG vocabulary) on their art history colleagues’ papers. Afterwards, English students wrote an argumentative research paper that illuminated the object. This research revolved around a thesis involving such topics as the artist, the subject, the circumstances of production, the cultural milieu, and the critical reception. The completed research paper was also posted in the wiki. The art history students provided commentary on their English partners’ papers. Throughout the steps of the project, the English and art history students illustrated all levels of Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy.

Graphic Novel: English 101 and Art History 225The English 101 and Art History 225: History of Graphic Design classes read Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, a graphic novel written from the perspective of Satrapi as a child living through the Iranian revolution. Working in pairs, the English students researched

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various time periods in coordination with the library and made pitches suggesting a period to work on to the graphic design students in the SWIG wiki. Recent projects included the French Revolution, World War II Germany, the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Motown, the Roaring Twenties, the Civil Rights movement, and the Black Lives Matter movement. Pairs of graphic design students selected a time period to work on with the English students. Then, collaboratively through the wiki, the groups developed their own comic strip with ten panels or more of people living through the event. The students developed the text and dialogue as well as the imagery (hand drawn or using computer software). The project highlighted here worked with the theme of the bombing of Pearl Harbor (see figure 5.5), which the students researched for historical accuracy. Not only did the project explain the experience of that moment, but it also provided context for an engaged discussion on racism and immigration. Throughout the steps of the project, the English and art history students illustrated all of the levels of Bloom’s Digital Taxon-omy. Especially noteworthy are the Creating and Sharing higher-order thinking skills, in which the students demonstrated authority on a topic and created visual and textual means to share knowledge.

Figure 5.5Sample SWIG project: Persepolis. Student work by Zandatsu.

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Website and Digital Stories: English, Biology, and SpeechThe Website and Digital Stories assignment features a three-discipline SWIG collabora-tion among students in biology, English, and speech classes. That semester, this SWIG team also participated in two other high-impact practices: Common Intellectual Expe-rience (Common Read) and Service Learning. The students read Rebecca Skloot’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, which became the primary source for their SWIG collaborative projects. The students then designed a website on Google Sites as a resource to accompany the Common Read, where they featured their SWIG digital projects and projects produced by other Common Read participants.

The SWIG assignment divided the students into ten working groups based on the topic they selected after discussing The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks in their own class. This brainstorming exercise encompassed both the Doing level of Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy, and the higher-level skill of Understanding through the deconstruction of the text to find interesting topics. Then each discipline focused on a specific task: the English members led the drafting process, the speech members led the digital production stage, and the biology members provided and checked the accuracy of scientific gifts to the project. Each group was assigned a wiki space in the SWIG course space on Blackboard, where members collaborated mostly asynchronously by posting their textual and multi-media gifts on the group’s wikis for other members to edit. Throughout the collaboration, members would use resources suggested in the SWIG LibGuide introduced in a media literacy workshop to search for their gifts.

Each group, in its respective wiki space, created a few pages—draft, draft revised, PowerPoint (slides and script), recording, and video. Each page denoted a step in their collaboration. For example, Group 1 worked on teen pregnancy, and one member from the English class started the collaboration by creating a thread entitled “Draft” and proposed an outline for the project. Other members then reviewed and edited the post using their assigned font color by either adding to the draft, checking the accuracy and attribution of information, or commenting on the tasks. When offering a gift, they would include the citation as well as the reason why they thought the gift was appropriate. At this stage, the members practiced Bloom’s categories of Remembering, Understanding, Applying, and Analyzing thinking skills until the group was happy with its project.

After all members contributed ideas, and the draft started to take shape, the English members created another post entitled “Draft—revised” and posted a clean revised draft for the members to finalize. Then members offered media gifts (pictures, statistics, audio, video) that would be added to the PowerPoint. Once the draft was finalized, the speech members used the draft and the media to create PowerPoint slides and script. Then the group recorded the audio for each slide and later combined the slides and audio and converted its project into a video clip using Camtasia Studios. At this stage the members practiced Bloom’s categories of Remembering, Understanding, Applying, Analyzing, and Evaluating thinking skills until the group was satisfied with its draft.

Creating the website that would house all the resource materials for the Common Read was another challenge. Student teams—design, content, legal, and technology—were each given a task to build the website. The legal team received additional guidance from the librarian. Because the website would exist on the web long after the class was over, all citation protocols had to be strictly followed. The legal team had to check that all

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citations were correct, that all pictures were free to use or share, and that any copyrighted material had written permission to be used on the site. The students were delighted when the Lacks family answered their inquiry quickly with permission to use the picture of Henrietta Lacks on their website. At this stage the members practiced Bloom’s catego-ries of Remembering, Understanding, Applying, Analyzing, Evaluating, and Creating thinking skills until they completed their website. The students then launched their website (see figure 5.6) at a college-wide presentation to other Common Read partici-pants and college administrators. When launching their website, the students represented the highest order thinking skill of Sharing. In summary, this SWIG assignment engaged students in all levels of thinking skills as described in Bloom’s Revised Digital Taxonomy (see figure 5.4).

Figure 5.6Sample SWIG project: Henrietta Lacks.

Peer Mentoring/Public Service Announcements: English 101 and Biology 520In the English/biology project Peer Mentoring/Public Service Announcements, students in the English class served as peer mentors for those in the biology class by collaborating on a wiki within Blackboard to complete a research paper. With the assistance of the peer editors in the English class, students in the biology class could better understand the process of academic writing and learn how to use digital tools in a virtual learning community. Prior to mentoring the biology students, the English students completed a research paper on a topic related to mental health, learning how to construct a thesis statement, gather sources, synthesize information, incorporate quotes, and write a first

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and final draft, thereby starting their journey on Bloom’s Revised Digital Taxonomy at the Creating and Sharing levels.

In subsequent weeks, the students were placed in groups on a wiki within Blackboard and embarked on the peer mentoring portion of the project with biology students who wrote research papers on topics in public health. In this phase, both the English and the biology students followed a strict timeline over the course of approximately six weeks. When they actively posted feedback for the students in BI 520, the ENGL 101 students responded and “Analyzed” the Biology students’ main idea, introduction, sources, body paragraphs, and conclusion. Special attention was given to the conventions of MLA formatting, which included proper parenthetical references and a Works Cited page, thereby placing students in both classes on the Applying and Evaluating levels of Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy.

At the end of the collaboration, students in the English class created and shared thir-ty-second public service announcements based on the topics from the biology students’ research papers, such as air pollution (see figure 5.7). The students extracted facts and information from the research papers and provided visual imagery and aesthetics using software such as Camtasia Studio, Audacity, or Adobe Voice, thereby achieving the Creat-ing and Sharing levels of Bloom’s Revised Digital Taxonomy (see figure 5.4). With the assistance of our emerging technologies librarian, students in the English class learned how to navigate academic databases for research as well as find images that were copy-right- and fair-use-appropriate for their public service announcement.

Figure 5.7Sample SWIG project: Public Health PSA. Photo credit: Friends of the Earth Scotland, “Activists Gather to Demand Clean Air as Edinburgh Air Pollution Zone to Be Expanded,” photograph by Maverick Photo Agency, August 25, 2015, https://www.flickr.com/photos/friendsoftheearthscotland/20684247088, Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0) license, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/.

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AssessmentThe main component of SWIG assessment lies in the scaffolded reflection cycle (see figure 5.3). Projects begin with a pre-reflection to assess prior knowledge on both the subject matter and procedural tasks. While students are collaborating for the duration of the project on the wiki, we assess their levels of collaboration with a faculty-designed collaboration rubric (appendix 5A). The final products, in many cases, are digital prod-ucts that usually take the form of a PowerPoint presentation, a multimodal project, or a video and are also assessed with a faculty-designed digital project rubric (appendix 5B).

When students complete SWIG projects, faculty assign post-reflections to assess not only student learning but also their experiences with doing such a unique assignment. The pre- and post-reflection activities provide snapshots of student knowledge and expe-rience, whereby their transformation through the acquisition and integration of new knowledge via the discipline-specific assignment can be assessed.

In post-reflections, students often express positive feedback with respect to the library information literacy classes. One student wrote, “Going to the library taught me how to write a research paper.” Another student expressed the impact of the library informa-tion literacy session on course material by writing, “One activity that will have a lasting impression that I can take to other classes is how to use the QCC library resource[s].”

On the HIP level, through SWIG professional development sessions, the SWIG leadership team guides faculty participants on aligning the college’s general education objectives with SWIG learning methodologies by assisting with project design. We also acknowledge the discipline- and course-specific learning objectives in developing proj-ects and demonstrate the importance of holding library information literacy classes and integrating library resources so that their students can best meet all the objectives.

In an effort to move beyond anecdotal qualitative information and comments, the SWIG leadership team is currently developing a quantitative assessment model to deter-mine the impact of information literacy classes on SWIG collaborations. We would like to develop a more comprehensive HIP-wide assessment plan by scaling it up to include all faculty practitioners.

ConclusionSWIG can be used as a model not only for the Collaborative Assignments and Projects HIP but also as a way for the library to be embedded in other high-impact practices. As we have shown in this chapter, including the library promotes moving from theoreti-cal pedagogy to practical application of higher-order thinking skills in the classroom. Through such applications in real time, students experience authentic learning and develop critical information literacy skills, which eventually will help students become informed lifelong collaborative learners.

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Collaborative Assignments and Projects 89

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Chapter 590

Notes 1. Lucy Jo Palladino, Find Your Focus Zone (New York: Free Press, 2011), 43–45. 2. Renee Hobbs, Digital and Media Literacy, white paper (Washington, DC: Aspen Institute, 2010),

https://www.knightfoundation.org/media/uploads/publication_pdfs/Digital_and_Media_Literacy_A_Plan_of_Action.pdf, vii–viii.

3. National Association for Media Literacy Education, “Media Literacy Defined,” accessed April 1, 2018, https://namle.net/publications/media-literacy-definitions/.

4. Anastasia Kitsantas and Nada Dabbagh, Learning to Learn with Integrative Learning Technologies (ILT) (Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing, 2010), 51–52.

5. Association of American Colleges and Universities, “High-Impact Educational Practices: A Brief Overview,” excerpt from George D. Kuh, High-Impact Educational Practices: Who They Are, Who Has Access to Them, and Why They Matter (Washington, DC: Association of American Colleges and Universities, 2008), accessed October 9, 2019, https://www.aacu.org/leap/hips.

6. Association of American Colleges and Universities, “High-Impact Educational Practices.” 7. Association of American Colleges and Universities, “High-Impact Educational Practices.” 8. Susan Choy, Nontraditional Undergraduates, NCES 2002-012 (Washington, DC: National Center for

Education Statistics, 2002), 2–3, https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2002/2002012.pdf. 9. Jean Darcy, “Reflection and Metacognition in First Year Experience at Queens-

borough Community College,” Hispanic Educational Technology Services (HETS) Online Journal 2 (Spring 2012), paragraph 9, https://hets.org/ejournal/2014/07/28/reflection-and-metacognition-in-first-year-experience-at-queensborough-community-college/.

10. Trikartikaningsih Byas and Alisa Cercone, “Technology-Enhanced High Impact Practice for Authen-tic Learning,” International Journal for Scholarship of Technology Enhanced Learning 1, no. 2 (May 2017): 48–50, http://ejournals.library.gatech.edu/ijsotel/index.php/ijsotel/article/view/27.

11. Ben Rosamond, “Plagiarism, Academic Norms and the Governance of the Profession,” Politics 22, no. 3 (2002): 172–73, https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9256.00172.

12. Gail Wood, “Academic Original Sin: Plagiarism, the Internet, and Librarians,” Journal of Academic Librarianship 30, no. 3 (May 2004): 239–42, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2004.02.011.

13. Robert David Putnam, Bowling Alone (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000), 20–21. 14. Linda Harasim, Learning Theory and Online Technologies (New York and London: Routledge, 2012),

14. 15. Kenneth A. Bruffee, Collaborative Learning (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999),

chapter 1. 16. John Dewey, Experience and Education (New York: Macmillan, 1956); John Dewey and Albert C.

Barnes, Art and Education, 2nd ed. (Merion, PA: Barnes Foundation Press, 1947). 17. Kathleen Blake Yancey, Reflection in the Writing Classroom (Logan: Utah State University Press, 1998);

Kathleen Blake Yancey, “Made Not Only in Words: Composition in a New Key,” College Composition and Communication, 56, no. 2 (2004): 297–328.

18. Kurt R. Schmeller Library, “Mission,” Queensborough Community College, accessed April 10, 2018, http://qcc.libguides.com/c.php?g=113222&p=2734181.

19. Association of College and Research Libraries, Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Educa-tion (Chicago: Association of College and Research Libraries, 2016), 4–7, http://www.ala.org/acrl/sites/ala.org.acrl/files/content/issues/infolit/Framework_ILHE.pdf.

BibliographyAssociation of American Colleges and Universities. “High-Impact Educational Practices: A Brief Overview.”

Excerpt from George D. Kuh, High-Impact Educational Practices: What They Are, Who Has Access to Them, and Why They Matter (Washington, DC: Association of American Colleges and Universities, 2008). Accessed October 9, 2019. https://www.aacu.org/leap/hips.

Association of College and Research Libraries. Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education. Chicago: Association of College and Research Libraries, 2016. http://www.ala.org/acrl/sites/ala.org.acrl/files/content/issues/infolit/Framework_ILHE.pdf.

Collaborative Assignments and Projects 91

Bruffee, Kenneth A. Collaborative Learning: Higher Education, Interdependence, and the Authority of Knowl-edge. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999.

Byas, Trikartikaningsih. “Navigating the Other Spaces: The Student Wiki Interdisciplinary Group Collaboration Project.” Procedia—Social and Behavioral Sciences 36 (2012): 295–305. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/82783710.pdf.

Byas, Trikartikaningsih, and Alisa Cercone. “Technology-Enhanced High Impact Practice for Authentic Learning.” International Journal for Scholarship of Technology Enhanced Learning 1, no. 2 (May 2017): 35–66. http://ejournals.library.gatech.edu/ijsotel/index.php/ijsotel/article/view/27.

Choy, Susan. Nontraditional Undergraduates: Findings from the Condition of Education. NCES 2002-012. Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics, 2002. https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2002/2002012.pdf.

Darcy, Jean. “Reflection and Metacognition in First Year Experience at Queensborough Community College.” Hispanic Educational Technology Services (HETS) Online Journal 2 (Spring 2012). https://hets.org/ejournal/2014/07/28/reflection-and-metacognition-in-first-year-experience-at-queensborough-community-college/.

Dewey, John. Experience and Education. New York: Macmillan, 1956.Dewey, John, and Albert C. Barnes. Art and Education, 2nd ed. Merion, PA: Barnes Foundation Press, 1947.Harasim, Linda. Learning Theory and Online Technologies. New York and London: Routledge, 2012.Hobbs, Renee. Digital and Media Literacy: A Plan of Action. White paper. Washington, DC: Aspen Institute,

2010. https://www.knightfoundation.org/media/uploads/publication_pdfs/Digital_and_Media_Literacy_A_Plan_of_Action.pdf.

Kitsantas, Anastasia, and Nada Dabbagh. Learning to Learn with Integrative Learning Technologies (ILT): A Practical Guide for Academic Success. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing, 2010.

Kurt R. Schmeller Library. “Mission.” Queensborough Community College. Accessed April 10, 2018. http://qcc.libguides.com/c.php?g=113222&p=2734181.

National Association for Media Literacy Education. “Media Literacy Defined.” Accessed April 1, 2018. https://namle.net/publications/media-literacy-definitions/.

Palladino, Lucy Jo. Find Your Focus Zone: An Effective New Plan to Defeat Distraction and Overload. New York: Free Press, 2011.

Putnam, Robert David. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000.

Rosamond, Ben. “Plagiarism, Academic Norms and the Governance of the Profession.” Politics 22, no. 3 (2002): 167–74. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9256.00172.

Wood, Gail. “Academic Original Sin: Plagiarism, the Internet, and Librarians.” Journal of Academic Librari-anship 30, no. 3 (May 2004): 237–42. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2004.02.011.

Yancey, Kathleen Blake. “Made Not Only in Words: Composition in a New Key.” College Composition and Communication, 56, no. 2 (2004): 297–328.

———. Reflection in the Writing Classroom. Logan: Utah State University Press, 1998.

AcknowledgementSWIG receives ongoing support from Queensborough Community College through the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, the Office of Educational Technology, and the Office of Institutional Research and Assessment.

Students Working in Interdisciplinary Groups (SWIG) received an Honorable Mention in the 2018 Diana Hacker TYCA Awards for Outstanding Programs in English in the category of Fostering Student Success.

ContributorsJean Amaral served as the Emerging Technology Librarian at Queensborough Commu-nity College before transferring to her current role as the Open Knowledge Librarian at

Chapter 592

Borough of Manhattan Community College. She was a part of the SWIG collaboration that produced the website and digital projects for The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.

Urszula Golebiewska is Associate Professor in Biological Sciences and Geology of Queensborough Community College. She and her class were parts of the SWIG collab-oration that produced the website and digital projects for The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.

Susan Lago is a lecturer in the English department at Queensborough Community College and contributed to the revised version of our wiki collaboration rubric.

Gene Mann is an adjunct instructor in the English department at Queensborough Community College and collaborated on the English and art history project.

Anuradha Srivastava is Assistant Professor in Biological Sciences and Geology of Queensborough Community College and collaborated on the English and biology project.

Brigitte Tilley in an adjunct instructor in the English department at Queensborough Community College and collaborated on the English and History of Graphic Design project.