Objectives: Oral and poster presentations of your research are one of the most important skills to learn as as an undergraduate science major. The goal of seminar is for students to learn how to give informative, concise, professional and enthusiastic oral and poster presentations on a research topic. In addition, you will use your library skills to gather information on a particular topic in biology and be able to discern what are the most important aspects to present. Although information you learned in Public Speaking will be useful, there is more to learn about how to present sciebtific research clearly and concisely. You should be able to use the communication skills you have learned to be able to judge presentations of other scientists. In the first class, information will be provided on how to make oral and poster presentations and a very general theme will be chosen for the student presentations. One section of this course is offered in each of the fall and spring semesters.

Prerequisites: Junior or senior standing as a biology major.

Credit Value: 1

Contact Time: One 50 minute meeting per week.

Outcomes: Upon the successful completion of this course a student should:

• be able to put together a 30-45 minute oral presentation on a biologically relevant topic
• actively participate in a question and answer period, regarding their presentation
• evaluate presentations outside of class and compare science to non-science presentation styles
• learn not only appropriate presentation style, but should be able to judge the audience for content, etc.
• summarize their oral presentation in poster format to determine whether they can adequately summarize a topic in a limited amount of space

Assessment:

• 30-45 minute presentation
• participation in question and answer period
• PowerPoint summary of seminar
• seminar critique packet: includes completed evaluation forms for student and non-student presentations
• Review of textbook
• Miscellaneous writing assignments