Student-led Presentation & Discussion

The instructor will lead the discussion for the first few weeks. For future classes one or two students will be assigned to organize and lead the discussion. During the first week of class, students should select at least three topics that they are interested in presenting and may indicate any dates that they would like to avoid presenting (e.g., travel for research, near another important deadline). The instructor will synthesize these inputs and announce the assigned topics and dates during the second week of class. Each student should allocate 15 hours to prepare for the discussion they lead, including thoughtful reading of the assigned reading, reading related sources to gain background knowledge an context, outlining their discussion plans, updating their plans based on instructor feedback, preparing materials to support the discussion they lead, planning questions or activities to stimulate constructive discussions, updating prepared materials and questions based on instructor feedback, reading questions/comments from other students via Perusal, and updating their plans based on student comments.

At least three weeks before their presentation/discussion: Student(s) should propose one to three articles that could provide the foundation for their presentation and subsequent discussion. In the proposal, students should identify what sections of the article(s) they propose assigning prior to class and what sections they propose recommending for reading after class. The total time required for reading assigned before class and recommended for after class should not exceed one hour. The instructor may suggest removing or replacing sources, request adding/removing sections assigned, and may require adding one one article of their choosing within one week of receiving a proposal. Provide a link to a PDF version of any readings that can be freely redistributed (e.g., from arXiv) whenever practical, so the instructor can upload it to Perusal.

At least two week before their presentation/discussion: Once the primary sources are agreed upon, the student(s) should read the article(s) thoughtfully, prepare an outline for their prepared in-class presentation and intended discussion points, and submit the outline to the instructor. Submissions may be simple ASCII text, a link to a collaborative document (e.g., Google Doc, Overleaf document), or a PDF. A typical outline would include: (1) plan for prepared materials (aim for approximately 15 minutes) that could include background or context (e.g., material from sections not included in the assigned reading) or an explanation of any particularly important concepts/methods/results/figures; and (2) potential questions and/or other prompts/active learning exercises designed to simulate constructive discussion via Perusal and/or during class. There is an example outline in the shared google drive folder (link valid for PSU students only). Students are encouraged to schedule a time to meet with the instructor after they have had a chance to begin thinking about how to incoporate any feedback and building their presentation materials, so they can ask any questions about their presentation/discussion topics.

Roughly one week before their presentation/discussion (and no later than 9am on the Monday prior to class): Students should submit draft presentation materials via Canvas. A link to a collaborative document is encouraged, as that facilitates suggestions and replies. A PDF is also acceptable. Any presentation prepared in a format that requires special software (e.g., Mac-specific formats) will have to be converted to PDF (or something else that the instructor can easily open). Students are also encouraged to add some questions/comments to the assigned reading in Perusal to help jump start discussion among other students.

The above deadlines may be relaxed slightly for the first two student-led discussions, depending on the number of students enrolled and the date of the first student-led discussion.

During the 24 hours prior to the start of the class with their presentation/discussion, students should review the questions, comments, discussion, and upvotes recorded by students on Perusal. (If it's not practical to use Perusal for some article due to copyright issues, then students can collect questions/comments via email instead.) Then students should consider updating their plans for discussion based on that feedback. (It's understandable that graphics added in responce to a question received on Tuesday will not be as polished as those that students started preparing about well in advance.)