Engineering 6101 – Assessment of Technology

Andrew Latus

Information about Class Presentations

12/9/02

Groups: Every student must participate in one in-class presentation. Each presentation will be made by a group of five students.[1] Until the end of this week (i.e., Sunday, Sept. 15), I will allow you to submit groups of your own devising. Anyone who is not part of a submitted group by the end of the week will be placed in a group by me, more or less at random. A detailed schedule of groups and presentation times will be handed out early next week.

Grading: The presentation is worth 20% of your term mark. It will be graded by the person supervising your session. In general, all members of a group will receive the same mark. However, I reserve the right to give different grades to individual members of the group if the quality of presentation by some group members is significantly better or worse than the rest of the group.

In addition, 5% of your term mark is based on your attendance of the in-class presentations. You will receive one point for each discussion session you attend (including the session in which your group makes a presentation).

Structure of the Presentations: A typical presentation should take 20-25 minutes (although quality is more important than duration). Think of the whole presentation as amounting to a brief essay in response to the relevant guest lecture. Every member of the group should be responsible for making a particular part of the presentation. In general, each presentation should deal with the following topics.

1. Introduction – In this part of the presentation, the main points of the guest lecture should be clearly and concisely explained.
2. Ethical Issue – Clearly explain an ethical issue (or issues) raised by the guest lecture. Be sure to make it clear how the issue is connected to the topic of the guest lecture. The issue may be something the lecturer explicitly mentioned or it may be an issue suggested by the lecturer’s topic even if he or she did not directly mention it.
3. Political/Legal Issue – Clearly explain either a political or legal issue raised by the guest lecture. Be sure to make it clear how the issue is connected to the topic of the guest lecture. You may deal with both a political and legal issue, but do not feel that you must do so. Some topics will lend themselves more to one sort of issue than the other. As with topic ii, the issue you deal with may have been directly touched on in the guest lecture or just be suggested by the lecture’s topic.
4. Discussion – Discuss one or both of the issues raised under topics ii and iii. In general, I would suggest using this section to make recommendations about how to deal with the issue(s) raised in ii and iii.
5. Conclusion – Provide a clear summary of the main points of your presentation.

You may decide which student will present which topic, but every student must present on one topic.

If you would prefer to use a different format for your presentation, please see me. Any alternative must still require each member of the group to make part of the presentation.

Please keep in mind that these presentations are intended as exercises in public speaking. As such, the form of the presentation is as important as its content.

You may use such aids as overheads and handouts, but are not required to do so.

Presentation #1: The following groups will be making presentations on Sept. 19 on the first guest lecture:

A B C D

EN – 1004 EN – 1002 EN – 1052 EN – 4035

Puneet Kushwaha Matt Goldsmith Melissa Squires Mutema Pittman

Chris O’Keefe Patty Lake Jennifer Handrigan Rob Collett

Pouria Shaker Paul Garnier Angela Russell Phillip Jewer

Keith O’Reilly Daryl Burry Darrell Bishop Steve Edwards

Trevor Blackler Steve Willis Matthew Murphy ?

Early next week, I’ll hand out a detailed schedule of presentations for the remainder of the term.

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[1] Five will be the normal size of a group. However, if the present class enrolment holds some groups may have six members.