| Dr. Drew Talley | Dr. Ron Kaufmann | Dr. Matt Craig |
|
Office: Shiley Center 266; x6810 |
Office: Shiley Center 274; x5904 |
Office: Shiley Center 167; x4099 mtcraig<at>sandiego<dot>edu or matthewcraig4<at>gmail<dot>com |
|
We 12:30-3:00, Th 10:30-12:00, Fr 1:00-2:00, or by appointment |
Mo 12:30-1:30, Tu 2:30-5:00, Fr 12:30-2:00, or by appointment |
Mo 1:00-3:00, Th 9:00-11:00, Fr 10:00-11:00, or by appointment |
Course Objectives
The objective of Senior Seminar is to learn the basic techniques for making a professional presentation in your field of study. You will work closely with the instructor to put together a public talk on a topic of your choice that reflects your major and pathway or minor. Each presentation will be composed using PowerPoint and presented to the public using a personal computer linked to a data projector. Formal lecturing will be minimal. Most of this course consists of your individual effort, with guidance from your instructor, researching, formulating, practicing and delivering your seminar.
Learning Outcomes
After taking this course, you should be able to
Demonstrate the ability to critically evaluate scientific information.
Synthesize and effectively communicate scientific information in oral form.
Attendance/Participation
(15%)
You are required to attend and
participate
in all class meetings, including the seminars presented by your peers.
Participation in class meetings and seminars other than your own
consists
of:
1) Being involved in class
discussions
2) Offering constructive comments
on your classmates' mini-presentations and seminar practice talks
3) Asking thoughtful questions at
Senior and outside seminars
You must invite to your public
presentation
at least one faculty member from the department/program in which you
have
your emphasis, concentration, or minor (if you have one that involves classes
outside the Marine Science and Environmental Studies Department). Please contact the person
as soon as you know your senior seminar date. Let your instructor
know whom you have contacted and their response.
In addition, you must attend three
outside seminars (other than Senior Seminars) held during this
semester,
prior to your public seminar presentation. You must turn in
one-page
summaries (hard copies or by e-mail as Word or pdf documents) of
all three outside seminars
no later
than 11:59 pm on the day of your seminar presentation. Each
summary
should
include a brief synopsis of the talk (content and major message) and
your
critical impressions of the speaker's presentation technique(s).
Attending outside seminars and evaluating them critically for
content
and style should help you to prepare and present your
own
seminar.
Appropriate outside seminars take place at various venues within San Diego, including USD, UCSD, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, SDSU and the San Diego Natural History Museum. Links to web sites with seminar schedules for some of these locations are included below.
San Diego Natural History Museum
Scripps Institution of Oceanography
UCSD Division of Biological Sciences
Mini-Presentations (10%)
Each student will choose one paper
from the
primary literature (i.e. an actual research paper, not someone's
summary,
interpretation or analysis of a paper or group of papers) and present it
to
the
class using a PowerPoint presentation to support the talk. Each
mini-presentation will last 5 minutes and should include the major
point
of the paper, the methodology used, the results, the author's
interpretations
and conclusions and, if you wish, your views on the subject. If
this
sounds like a lot of information to put into a 5-minute talk, you're
right
- it is. The purpose of this exercise is to:
1) Give you some exposure to
speaking
in front of a group of people,
2) Accustom you to making points and
getting your message(s) across with a few, well-chosen words
3) Establish your proficiency with
PowerPoint
software, if you're not familiar with it already.
The mini-presentation also is designed to give you a preliminary idea of any bad public speaking habits that you may want to correct before you give your actual seminar. Papers for mini-presentations should be approved by your instructor at least one week before your mini-presentation. The mini-presentation will count for 10% of your course grade.
Deadlines (25%)
Apart from the seminar itself, you
must meet
five major deadlines:
February 22:
By this date your instructor must have approved a
focused senior seminar topic and two
of the primary references that will form the core of your senior seminar
topic.
Be sure to start discussing potential topics with
before your instructor at the beginning of the semester so that you can
meet
this deadline. Any student who does
not have a
focused, approved topic by this deadline seriously should consider
dropping the
course.
Four
weeks before your seminar you should go over a rough
draft of
your PowerPoint presentation, including potential graphics and
organizational
text slides (introductory, outline or summary slides). These
slides
should form the framework for your seminar.
Three
weeks before your seminar you must present to your
instructor
a more finished version of your PowerPoint presentation. This
should include more
polished
versions of graphics plus a well-organized talk outline. By this
time, you should know what you want to say and how you plan to present
it.
Two
weeks
before your seminar you should be prepared to read through your talk,
including
near-final versions of your graphics as you propose to present
them.
A polished practice talk isn't required at this point, but the only
things
missing should be final editing of the figures and the exact text of
the
talk itself. By your two-week deadline the organization and
content
of the talk and the number, nature and sequence of the graphics all
should
be in final form.
One week
before your seminar you must do at least one practice run-through of
your
talk with AT LEAST TWO instructors. At this time, all graphics should be
completed
in their final form and the text should be finished and prepared well
enough
to allow you to give your practice talk without obviously reading your
notes. The purpose of this practice session is to polish your
presentation
and correct any potential problems. At this point, any changes
that
are made should be essentially cosmetic (i.e., designed to make you and
your presentation look better).
It is very important that you take
these deadlines seriously and meet the requirements for each deadline.
Keeping
track of the deadlines and making arrangements to meet with your
instructor
is your responsibility. Your compliance with this
schedule will count for 25% of your course grade.
Seminar (50%)
You will be required to present a
15-minute seminar (followed by a question period) on a suitable topic
(see below). Four to five seminars will be presented in a single class
period, beginning on Friday, April 5.
Students presenting
seminars
will
be introduced by classmates.
Your seminar topic should be
selected
in consultation with your instructor. An appropriate topic
generally
falls into one of two categories: a presentation of the student's own
research
or a presentation of a topic on which the student
hasn't
worked directly. Either is acceptable, but topics should have a
strong
research or policy basis. Your seminar MUST
reflect the scientific method (a question, presentation of data,
interpretation
of the data, conclusions following from the data, and interpretation),
whether
your topic is science research or policy research oriented.
YOUR SEMINAR TOPIC MUST INCORPORATE THE PHILOSOPHICAL PERSPECTIVES
OF YOUR
MAJOR AND PATHWAY.
Adherence
to
this requirement will be considered strongly in the grading of your
seminar.
The seminar presentation will count for 50% of your course grade.
Scheduling a date, time and topic
for your seminar will begin as soon as possible. Time slots will
be filled on a first come/first served basis, so it is to your
advantage
to sign up as soon as possible. Choose your time slot
thoughtfully.
Once you have signed up for a seminar date it will NOT
be changed, unless you have a VERY
compelling reason (medical emergency, family tragedy, etc.).
If you need to reschedule because you are not ready to present and have NOT presented your instructor with a valid reason, you automatically will lose one letter grade.
IT IS THE RIGHT OF THE INSTRUCTOR TO DETERMINE WHETHER YOU ARE SUFFICIENTLY PREPARED FOR YOUR SEMINAR AND, IF YOU ARE NOT, TO POSTPONE OR CANCEL YOUR PRESENTATION. IF NECESSARY, THIS ACTION MAY IMPACT YOUR COURSE GRADE.
Seminar titles and a topical
photo should be
provided
to
your instructor and to Kathy Andrews,
the MARS/ENVI Executive Assistant, two weeks before
the seminar
date.
Kathy and your instructor will be responsible for preparing and
distributing
announcements
for your seminars.
Click Here for Suggestions on Preparing a Good Senior Seminar
Grades
| Attendance/Participation | 15% |
| Mini-Presentation | 10% |
| Meeting Deadlines | 25% |
| Seminar | 50% |
| DATE | TOPIC/ACTIVITY |
| Feb 1 | Introduction/Course description/Do’s and
Don’ts - Topic/date signups for mini-presentations and seminars |
| Feb 8 | No formal class meeting - Approval of papers for mini-presentations |
| Feb 15, 22, Mar 1 |
Mini-presentations
|
| Feb 22 |
DEADLINE FOR FOCUSED TOPICS
|
| Mar 1 - 29 |
Work on seminars - Various deadlines
|
| Apr 5 |
Senior Seminars: Alyssa Beerling, Andrea Ferrer, Nick Hennrikus, Anthony Mau, Spencer Morgan
|
| Apr 12 |
Senior Seminars: Paige Carey, Craig Foxhoven, Colleen Grant, Kaelin McAtee, Julie Richardson
|
| Apr 19 |
Senior Seminars: Jessica Andrade, Colin Phillips, Tom Remington, Emily Roberts, Alex Shalosky
|
| Apr 26 |
Senior Seminars: Allain Andry, Amanda
D'Acquisto, Brian Glass, Sara Leitheiser, Megan Stransky |
| May 3 |
Senior Seminars: Vanessie Christensen,
Dano Ferons, Hayley Gross, David Martinez, Brendan Saunders |
| May 10 | Assessment Exam |
Assessment Exam
The assessment exam (May 10) is
designed
to give the faculty in the Marine Science and
Environmental Studies Department feedback on what you have learned in
your
upper division MARS/ENVI
courses. You should not study for this exam but you should take
it
seriously. This exam has no bearing on your course grade but is a
requirement for you to receive a grade in this course (i.e. no exam =
no
grade). Not taking this exam seriously (e.g. writing “I don’t
know”
repeatedly or answering frivolously) will be treated as not taking the
exam at all.
This page copyright 2005-2013 by
Ron Kaufmann
All rights reserved
Last modified 8 Feb 2013 by Ron
Kaufmann