FLC 198 – Biology of Toxins

Class Project

I really want this class to help you transition from high school to college and prepare you for success in future courses, and that’s my motivation for having you do an oral presentation at the end of the semester. The purpose of the project is three-fold:

1. to let you delve more deeply into a toxicological topic that’s of particular interest to you,

2. to help you develop your critical thinking skills, and

3. to give you experience in preparing and delivering an oral presentation to a scientifically knowledgeable audience.

Because I want this effort to be enjoyable as well as educational, I’ll be extremely flexible with respect to the topics I approve. However, there are limits…

Project Details

  • I would prefer that you work in teams of 3 – 4 students, to reduce the workload. However, if you and another student really want to go it alone, that’s acceptable.
  • Your presentation should involve more than simply describing some toxin and its effects; there’ll be plenty of that in my lectures. Think about medical, social, religious, ecological, or evolutionary aspects of the toxin(s) you choose to focus on. Be creative in developing your topic! If you’re having trouble coming up with something, let’s talk. Soon!
  • Once I’ve approved your topic, use search engines thoroughly research it via the primary literature ( = articles in scientific journals), review articles, books, etc. You can also use the Web for your research, but you must have at least 5 primary literature references cited in your bibliography. Use the results of your research to produce a PowerPoint presentation that you will give during the last few weeks of the semester. If you’re not familiar with PowerPoint, here are a few on-line tutorials:
  • Each team will present me with a schedule and a breakdown of (i) each team member’s responsibility during the research phase and (ii) what each team member will be responsible for during the presentation. I expect you to divide the workload equably. If you want to do a tag-team presentation with each team member doing part of the presentation, that’s fine.

Slackers will be dealt with most harshly!

  • When you do your presentation, you will give me

1. a copy of your PowerPoint file and your annotated bibliography. “Annotated” means that each bibliographical entry is accompanied by a 1- or 2-sentence summary of the contents of the paper,

2. copies of the five (5) papers from the primary research literature that were most instrumental in developing your presentation, and

3. URLs for at least five (5) good toxicology websites

  • We will run the presentations like a session at an international scientific meeting. You will be allotted a 20-minute time slot for your presentation. You should use 12-15 minutes for the actual presentation, leaving five minutes for questions, clearing the stage, etc. Be sure to thoroughly rehearse your talk and time it beforehand. Presentations that are too short or too long will not receive as high a score.
  • Each presentation will be evaluated by me and by your fellow students, using a standardized evaluation form that I will provide. Your peers’ evaluation of your presentation will be incorporated into your final presentation grade. Copies of the completed evaluation forms will be provided to students requesting them.

How Will Our Presentation Be Evaluated?

Your presentation will be evaluated on the basis of five criteria: organization, quality of research, preparation, and originality, weighted as follows:

  • Organization of presentation – 30%

An effective presentation consists of an Introduction, a Results section, and Conclusions.

oIntroduction

  • This should tell your audience why you chose to talk about your particular topic and catch your audience’s interest…why should they care about your presentation?
  • You should provide the members of your audience with the information they need to understand the topic of your presentation and its significance.

oResults

  • This should involve a concise, effective presentation of what you learned during your research.

oConclusions

  • This should involve a concise, effective presentation of what you feel is the significance of your results, what they mean, how they could be used, etc.
  • If appropriate, this section could discuss where you might suggest going from here, possibilities for future research that might draw on your findings, etc.

Also keep in mind that a presentation is generally more effective if you:

  • tell your audience what you’re going to tell them.
  • tell them, and
  • tell them what you just told them.

Of course, that’s a little tongue-in-cheek, but you really should keep it in mind when you’re organizing your presentation.

  • Quality of your research – 30%

oJudgment of this will be based on:

  • How thoroughly did you research on your topic?
  • Were you able to come up with some surprising information about your topic?
  • Were you confident in your results and what they mean?
  • Number of references

oBut, don’t ‘pad’ your talk with unnecessary fluff

  • Perceived quality of references (based roughly on how rigorously material would have to be reviewed by scientific community). An ordered list:
  • Primary research literature, review articles, top-flight journals such as Science, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), Nature, etc.
  • Scientific books, such as those containing individual chapters on your topic
  • General science magazines aimed at a scientifically literate audience (e.g., Scientific American, Science Weekly)
  • Encyclopedias, other ‘general’ reference books
  • Popular media (popular books, magazine articles, TV documentaries, newspaper articles, etc.)
  • Personal experience

100. Something you “heard” or “read” somewhere.

  • Preparation – 20%

oWere you prepared?

oHad you rehearsed thoroughly?

oDid you stick to your time limit?

  • Evidence of original thinking? – 10%

oDid you go beyond a simple presentation of a number of facts about your topic?

oDid you present anything new or particularly interesting?

oDid you use the results of your research to come up with anything new – new insights, a new direction for research, a new hypothesis to be tested by future research, etc.?

oHow well did you anticipate/respond to questions?

  • Presentation effectiveness – 10%

oDid your presentation engage the audience?

oDid you make unusually effective use of multimedia – audio, video, animation, etc.?