Oral Presentation Grading

by Dr Davis on January 4, 2010

I had oral reports in class this semester. I graded them hard. Most people made As anyway, because they did exactly what I wanted. Four people earned Ds and one earned an F. (This of the people who did the reports, 46 out of 50.)

I was very hard on the grades. If you went over a full minute, you lost a letter grade. If your poster wasn’t legible from six feet away, you lost a letter grade. If you did not introduce your topic, you lost a letter grade.

One student went from a C- to a D+ (though we don’t use +/-) and really wanted to know why he didn’t make a C. The main reason was his work was late. However, he would have made a C if I had not graded so hard on the oral presentation because he did good work.

So I am rethinking my grading, again. I don’t think I will change the rubric for this semester. He is the only person whose grade would change because of it and I don’t want to encourage grade grubbing. I think if he had asked, rather than complained, I might have been willing to do it, though. And that bothers me.

So I need to be more forethoughtful about the presentation grades.

MsMicrobe, on a Chronicle forumgave these as her criteria:

1. Main topic controversy identified
2. Adequate background
3. Organization of talk is clear to audience
4. Data presented to support ideas
5. Conclusion clear.
6. Appropriate scientific language used
7. Effectively uses visual aids
8. Effective delivery
9. Answers questions
10. On time. (with reasonable limits above and below the target time)

All of the students are expected to ask questions. I will call on someone to ask a question if none arise.

I break speaking down into confident body language and confident voice usage. I have each student fill out a feedback sheet for the speaker. They have to tell the speaker the best thing they did with body language (posture, eye contact, etc.) and what one thing they should focus on improving. They also have to praise the best thing the speaker did with their voice (speed, volume, inflection) and indicate what one area the speaker should work to improve.

I do NOT want to have to look at 50×50 feedback sheets, but I like the idea of doing it.

I am going to think about this long and hard this semester.

Fun idea
Oh, this is a good idea. And it might be fun.

Give a “bad” presentation illustrating some common problems, and let the class critique you.

from Systeme D at the same forum.

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University as Popular Culture

by Dr Davis on January 4, 2010

prof-in-the-cloud-victor-juhaszI was looking for something on the net and found an interesting article, written in 2003, on the university and its relationship to popular culture.

I think an idea presented in the article, the university as popular culture, could potentially be a very fruitful one for study. It makes me want to add another area to my reading/writing list.

Clouding the Issues by Gerald Graff may be worth your time to read.

The image is from the article and is an illustration by Victor Juhasz.

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MLA Thoughts 5

by Dr Davis on January 4, 2010

I have been to MLA once before, twenty years ago.

Preparing for this year, I had heard lots of negative things. Or perhaps I heard one really negative story and universalized it.

I enjoyed MLA and I found the presentations thoughtful. Not all of them were well done. (Those grad students should have had advisors reigning them in. I’m not sure what to do about the others who read articles instead of presentations.) But all of them had good information.

I also found an exciting, relatively new area to possibly extend my scholarship into. That’s always a good thing.

As for the crowds and craziness…

There were between 17 and 35 sessions at each time period. It was divided into three venues. The arrangers left 30 minutes between each, so if you left on time, you had plenty of time to get to the other and grab a chair before the talk started.

The sessions I was in were attended by between 12 and 200 people. Only one had 200. That was the one about NEH money. (Yes, I will be posting about that later. Stay tuned.) Most of them though were between 12 and 40, with the average probably around 28 or 30.

And most of the time periods had at least 25 sessions. So 750 people were in rooms at any one time. There were 767 panels with at least 3 people, which is about 2300 people. However, some did do two panels. Counting only the first page of listings, there were 124 presenters, 23 of whom presented twice. If one-fifth is the average number of presenters who presented twice, that lowers the numbers of presenting attenders to 1840.

Many people came only to interview. Others interviewed and attended a panel or two. So there were not crowds and crowds of people.

There were, however, many different topics available. On the last day I was only able to attend my own presentation because I was dealing with pretty severe vertigo. I missed a panel on prayer, John Milton, and Victorian rituals. The range of possible topics was amazing.

Now, there were not forty sessions on Victorian rituals. Another problem was that related topics were scheduled at the same time. For instance, contemporary prayer and 19th C American religion were both at the same time. I think people who were interested in one might have been interested in the other. But they would not have been able to attend both.

I think I would recommend MLA to others. And, if you have fascinating, groundbreaking stuff, we want to hear about it. Really.

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