Biology 11A Presentations

 (50 points)

 

The goal of this assignment is to give you experience at researching and presenting topics in biology. You will work in groups of 2-3 to learn about a human disease and give an oral powerpoint presentation to the lab section. If you have not already done so, sign up for one of the 8 topics in your lab session. These topics are all on human diseases that directly relate to systems discussed in lecture.

 

The Assignment

 

Your presentation will be a 15 minute-long powerpoint slide show and oral talk. You can also use the board to supplement your slides. If you do not know how to use powerpoint, the library, or I, can help you. All group members must help putting together the powerpoint and speak during the talk! There will be a few minutes between groups for question/answer. Follow the outline below to construct your presentation:

 

  1. Title slide: include the title of your presentation and your names.
  2. Disease background: describe the disease.
    1. Describe the cause.
    2. How does the disease relate to the system discussed in class?
    3. What are the symptoms?
    4. How widespread is the disease? Who are affected? Give some demographic data.
  1. Treatment/Prevention: discuss cures and therapies of the disease.
    1. Discuss current treatments and/or prevention.
    2. What are the new or up-and-coming treatments/research on the disease?
  1. Key points: summarize the important points of your topic and presentation.
  2. References: cite all sources used in your presentation (textbooks, research articles, internet links, etc). Any figure/diagram/table taken from another source must be cited.

 

Try to present the information in an engaging and logical way. Do not put too much information on one slide because it may be hard to see. Have a balanced mix of graphics and text. Try not to just read off of what is on the slides. Also, do not rush through slides too quickly. Generally, spending about 1 minute per slide is a good pace. That means you will have about 15 slides or so for your whole presentation.

 

All presentations are going to be run from my laptop PC. On the day of your presentation, you will bring in a CD or USB storage device that contains your powerpoint file(s). We will load my laptop with your presentation at the beginning of lab. Please do not build you powerpoint slide show with a Mac because it will not run well on a PC. We will not have enough time to switch out computers between presentations! I also need to have access to your slide show on my PC to post on the web.

 

Grading

 

Your presentation will be graded on clarity and accuracy of the information. I will also look for how well you follow the format listed above and how logical and clear your presentation is. All members of the group will receive the same grade, so it is important that you work closely with your teammates on this assignment. Check out the protected area for past powerpoint presentations. These are not necessarily “A” presentations, but give you an idea of what students have done in the past. The information you present will be on Test 3, so for the sake of the class, it is important that you do a good job! All powerpoint slide shows will be posted on my protected area website the Friday before Test 3 so that you will have a chance to review them at home. The following is the rubric I will use for grading this assignment.

 

Item

Maximum Points

Points Awarded

Comments

Title (2 pts)

2

 

 

Background (20 pts)

Cause

5

 

 

Body System Affected

5

 

 

Symptoms

5

 

 

Demographics

5

 

 

Treatments (10 pts)

Cures/Prevention

5

 

 

New Research

5

 

 

Key Points (2 pts)

2

 

 

References (2 pts)

2

 

 

Style (10 pts)

Oral Clarity

5

 

 

Visuals

5

 

 

Questions/Answers (4 pts)

4

 

 

Total

50