In-class presentation
- Default due date: as assigned
- Points: 100
- Weight: 10%
- Length (in words): 500
Instructions
During Weeks 3–10, students will be assigned the role of kicking off class discussion by giving a brief presentation that expands on what they wrote for their weekly writing assignment. In this “opener” presentation, each student will speak for five minutes, stating how they responded to the week’s question or writing prompt, highlighting the questions they had about the assigned readings for the week, and adding one item to the agenda of topics we will discuss in that week’s class.
In Weeks 1 and 2, students can nominate their first and second choice of weeks to give an in-class presentation and Ryan will assign each student to a week based on their preferences. Every week, 2 or 3 students will open class with their presentations and each add a topic to the week’s agenda.
How your work will be evaluated
The purpose of this assignment is two-fold: (1) it creates an opportunity (and a responsibility) for all students to guide what we discuss in class, and (2) it gives each student a chance to practice live public speaking in class prior to the presentations in Week 13. It’s meant to be very informal. Like the weekly writing assignments, this is a warm up exercise. Just as you are not graded on mastery of knowledge in your weekly writings, these in-class presentations are not going to be graded on being an expert on the week’s topics or readings. Being prepared, being ready to present in class on time, being able to expand on and explain the germ of an idea from that week’s writing assignment are what is important. (Your weekly writing assignments only require one or two sentences. Your 5-minute presentation in class might consist of saying much more, equivalent to a full single-spaced page.)
The grading criteria for the presentations are subject to further discussion in class and may change.
Since this assignment is delivered in class, it is not eligible for an automatic five-day extension. If you have special consideration, you can submit an alternative assignment.
Can I use AI?
When you’re preparing for your presentation, you’re on your own, so you can use AI tools, and you have the responsibility to do so honestly and the responsibility of making your own choices about how to use those tools. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. (Imagine reading a 500-word script written by a bot. Embarrasing!) Ryan may ask some follow up questions in your presentation. This will be to help things along and will not be tests as such. But the questions will be live, direct, on-the-spot, so AI tools are off the table. However you prepare, you should also know what you are planning to say. As the campus posters say, AI isn’t responsible for you, but you are responsible for it.
Here are some ways you might use an AI tool to get ready to present live in class:
- You could turn on voice recognition and speak into your computer to transcribe what you say, and then edit the transcript.
- You could then instruct an AI bot to play the role of someone from class, the seminar leader (Ryan) or a fellow student, and ask it to ask you questions it thinks you might get in class (tough ones, or real left-field ones from the peanut gallery).
- You could ask a bot for tips on public speaking. It’s digested trillions of words from the Internet so some good advice on speaking in public is probably buried in there somewhere.
- You could read your script to a bot and ask it to suggest some jokes you can use in class.
Don’t forget, when you use AI tools for any assigned work, you have to acknowledge that you did and how you did it. Document everything. More documentation is better. Did you spend 3 hours chatting in depth about the complexities Susan Leigh Star’s (1999) ideas? That actually counts as effort, and it’s good, honest work toward formulating your own ideas as long as you take responsibility for the final product and you disclose where the product comes from.