Behs 103 | BEHS 103 | University of Maryland University College

Our last week of class will turn the spotlight on you! Essentially, YOU become the teachers. Based on the research you have done on your individual topics, you are to present your findings to the class in a well-crafted original presentation. Your presentation should cover the components listed in the rubric below.  Your presentation is due the first day of week 8 so that the class has time to review your work. 

The presentation 

Your presentation can take any form you choose that is conducive to an online format. This includes narrated slide shows (e.g. Powerpoint, Prezi, YouTube), podcasts or audio recordings, written materials (e.g. brochures, pamphlets, posters, etc.).  Your presentation should contain about 10-15 minutes of content. Use the rubric presented below to structure your work. Be sure to touch upon each required component to earn as many points as you can. 

This can be the time to be creative! Engage your audience and show us your diligent research and knowledge on your chosen technology topic. 

Creating the presentation

• Presentations and discussion questions are due starting on Wednesday evening of Week 8 by 11:59 PM EST. Refer to the syllabus for the grading rubric. Your presentations will be graded according to how well the presentation satisfies each of the requirements.
• Your presentation should take about 10-15 minutes for your classmates to view or review.
  • If you are narrating your presentation, using a video, or providing an audio podcast, this time limit is self-explanatory.
  • If you are submitting an unnarrated slide show (PowerPoint or Prezi), provide notes or a transcript to help your viewer understand what they are viewing.
• If you are doing a PowerPoint presentation, you may want to do a web search on “effective PowerPoint presentations” – there are plenty of sites with great suggestions. My top 5 tips are:
  1. Use easy to read fonts and keep them consistent throughout the presentation.
  2. Make sure your text is large enough. For standard fonts, a pitch of 28 is usually a good size (with headers being larger).
  3. Use bullet points rather than paragraphs and complete sentences, especially if you are providing narration.
  4. Visual images that illustrate the point you are trying to make promote deeper learning, but don’t go crazy with the clip art! Simpler is usually better.
  5. Go easy on the animations. They can be effective, but they shouldn’t be distracting.
• Remember to provide citations – if you are presenting a fact that you learned from an article, website or other source, you MUST provide a citation. I expect that everyone will be using citations since you all conducted research to learn more about your topics.
  • In a slide show, you can provide the citation in small font at the bottom of the slide you are citing.
  • In a slide show, you can provide a Reference list at the end of your presentation.
  • In a text transcript of video/audio media, you must use in-text citations and a Reference list.
  • In an audio presentation, you can verbally acknowledge your source (e.g. “Dr. John Smith from Harvard University said…”) or you can provide a separate reference list along with your presentation.

Technology and Politics