OVERVIEW

PRESENTATIONS BEGIN APRIL 10TH

SYLLABUS

Here's what I need for February 27:

• What is your topic? (Describe in a couple of sentences.)
• BRIEFLY (a paragraph or so) how does your topic relate to Lifespan Development?
• Will you do an individual presentation or one as part of a group? If a group is planned, please let me know all team members!

Please bring your presentation on a flashdrive.  I will load your presentation  onto Blackboard immediately so I will be able to give your flashdrive back to you and students will be able to access your presentation later on.

If you have a presentation team, its composition is up to you. It does not need to be your in-class assignment Team-Based Learning team.

Please let me know immediately if any of these dates are problematic for you!
 

April 10	April 15	April 22	April 24
Nikita Arias  & Olufemi Osunsanya	Kara Dingess & Sarah Schaefer	Austin Gonzalez	Shannon Mallory
Sara Castro & Ana Martinez	Kathryn Hayes & Chelsea Klein	Courtney Cagle, Kaylyn Kraus & Jordan Wilson	Lynn Turner
	Sarah Margeson & Patricio Toledo	Maddie Foster, Pei-Chun Hou & Julia Kronholz

 

PRESENTATION LOGISTICS

You will need to:

prepare a two to three page synopsis handout for class distribution

the handout and the presentation should summarize the major points on the conceptual and empirical literature on your topic. The synopsis outlines your topic, discusses major concepts and findings, and highlights directions for future research.

Most important: The handout also gives your audience something to look at and to do with their hands so they do not stare at you while you present.

You will do a brief presentation (15-20 minutes) and lead a brief discussion on the topic

You may use varied media in your presentation/discussion. Our class room has an overhead projector, computer for PowerPoint, a VCR/DVD and other audio-visual aids. Past presenters have included video'd parts of their experiment for their presentation.

Try leaving 5 minutes for questions and discussion (I know, that's only 10-15 minutes for a presentation, but remember, people can scan the handout.)

Include examples in your presentation and handout. Concrete examples are a very helpful way to illustrate concepts.

Please include a bibliography at the end of your handout so interested persons can follow up on the topic.

You will need either Power Point or the Power Point viewer (available on virtually all university computers) to view these presentations.

SOME ORGANIZATIONAL TIPS

!!NO MORE THAN 30 SLIDES FOR PRESENTATIONS PLEASE!!

Have a comprehensive introduction. Your introduction, in a few paragraphs, should tell us (1) what your presentation  will be about, (2) why the topic is important to know about, and (3) your contribution to it (e.g., a review of the literature, a new study on mate selection).

It is helpful to write a couple of sentences or a paragraph that summarize the main topic of your project. Place this paragraph before you as you create your presentation. If your ideas do not directly relate to that main topic, eliminate it or them, no matter how fascinating they may be. Remember you can probably include that excised idea for a different project later on.

Working from outlines will help organize your ideas and the order in which you present them.

Remember that each slide should be about one main idea and subtopics related to that idea. You may even need more than one slide per idea.

REFERENCE APPROPRIATE LITERATURE

Be sure to use professional journals, such as The Journal of Communication, Journal of Counseling Psychology, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Journal of Educational Psychology, Journal of Abnormal Psychology, and other professional journals in your field. In general, AVOID popular magazines or newspapers; their authors typically are journalists, not trained behavioral scientists, and at best, only interview behavioral scientists. Avoid WIKIPEDIA since unfortunately it can be edited and re-edited so its content is not standard and its peer review is quite different from professional peer review!

YOUR PERSONAL EXPERIENCES

Your personal experiences as a counselor, teacher or researcher make terrific illustrations. However, recall that in a professional presentation, personal recollections constitute a VERY small part of what is presented to the viewer (maybe 5 percent, certainly no more than 10 percent). Your emphasis for this course should be on concepts and the evidence supporting or refuting the concepts. Use a sentence or so of personal experience (if appropriate) as a springboard to introduce a topic, or as an illustration, no more than that.

BE SELECTIVE AND PRIORITIZE

All concepts are not equally important, all theories not equally fruitful, all empirical studies not equally well executed or unambiguously informative. In selecting theories, concepts, and studies for your presentation, emphasize those that are the most important and appropriate for your topic.

Examine theories and concepts for internal contradictions, ease of operationalization potential, and the available supporting evidence. Consider whether the studies you select for review could have multiple interpretations of the results or are too limited to be conclusive.

ORGANIZE AROUND CONCEPTS, NOT AUTHORS

What were the major findings about your topic? Were group processes more important than "personality" in studies of bullying? How does ethnicity and its associated social experiences affect eating disorders? What are the major influences of cartoon violence on children's aggression? Take a look at your readings. They will summarize a finding ("imitation of aggression increased when the model was rewarded") then cite a few studies as examples.
 

HELP! I'M DOING A LITERATURE REVIEW AND FINDING A MASS OF CONTRADICTIONS

This is actually a pretty typical experience. To help you through the maze, here are some suggestions:

Consider methodology first: Are the populations comparable in the  different articles and papers you examined? Findings derived from college student samples (truncated ages, socio-economic class, academic ability) may not generalize to other groups.

More methodology: are the verbal and other measures used comparable? If not, this may cause discrepant results across studies.

More methodology: were control variables used in the analysis? Were the SAME control variables used in the analysis? Bivariate results may change when other independent variables are controlled.

Check out the age of the publication. Gender differences in math once found in high school students have narrowed dramatically and in several recent studies girls are now taking more math than boys. More recent generations are more sophisticated about science inquiry than earlier generations. The phenomenon you are interested in may have changed over time (that's an interesting finding, so be sure to include it if that's what happened).

Please ensure your research findings are as up to date as possible!

Got TOO MUCH literature? Your topic may be too broad. Narrow the scope of your review.

OVERVIEW

SYLLABUS

This page was built with Netscape Composer.
Susan Carol Losh January 6 2014
 

Tallahassee to come?