Course Content: Presentations
Twice over the course of the semester you (together with a partner) will lead the class discussion of the assigned research papers. Leading discussion involves preparing a short presentation on the assigned readings, as well as steering the class discussion of these readings. You should expect to do some additional background reading and research to prepare to lead class discussion. Check the schedule for the dates you signed up to lead class discussion.
Your goal in leading class discussion of a set of papers will be similar to your goal in writing a reading response. You should think about the same issues in preparing your presentation.
However, the presentation is slightly more challenging in that you have to lead the class discussion for about 45 minutes, which will take a little more work and preparation. You should research the context of the paper, figuring out what similar work was being done in the field at the time this paper was published. You should know something about the authors and what else they have worked on. You should also know what work (if any) followed from the work presented in the papers you were assigned.
During a class in which you lead discussion on a set of papers, the rough schedule for the class will be the following:
- 15-20 minutes: Prof. Alvarado introduces the topic area and gives general background.
- 45-50 minutes: Students lead dicsussion on assigned readings
- 10 minutes: Students give peer feedback and Prof Alvarado gives presenters feedback.
I will present a general introduction to the topic and talk about history, background and main ideas in the area. Then you will take over.
In your presentation, you should spend a few minutes time going over the papers' background and identifying the main points of the papers (e.g., problem, solution, evaluation, contribution). Don't spend too much time here. This part tends to be boring as your peers have read the papers already. If you can, try to find a video to show or some additional information on the system/systems that wasn't in the paper.
You should then spend most of the presentation time getting the class to discuss how these papers relate to the UI concepts we have been talking about. You will want to have in mind a number of discussion questions that relate the papers to the course material designed to get an interesting discussion started. This task is not easy and will require significant thought and planning. Here are some ideas/guidelines for making your discussion go well:
- When you think of a discussion question, ask yourself: "How would I answer this question? Is it interesting to think about?" If you have no answer or you think the question is boring, then so will your peers.
- Avoid discussion questions that have only one reasonable answer. There should reasonably be (at least) two sides to take in the answer to a good question, otherwise it's not really a discussion. Try discussing the questions with your partner and see if you can each take a side and defend it.
- Along the same lines, avoid leading questions where you bias the class into answering one way or the other. For example, "Do you really think that they could learn anything from just 5 users in their study??" This question will not lead to good discussion because you've already essentially told the class how to answer it.
- Think about incorporating a class activity that illustrates the ideas in the papers. For example, one year a student brought in some clay when we were covering tangible interfaces and asked the class to design tangible widgets.
- Ask questions that tie the two papers together, rather than simply focusing on one or the other.
- Generally, the more specific your questions, the better. Avoid the following too-general questions (though it's ok to ask more specific versions of them):
- What was good/bad about these interfaces?
- What did you think of their user study?
- How could the authors improve the work?
- It's OK to begin with some slightly more general warm-up questions. For example, you might ask people to share what they wrote in their short responses, or ask them simply to comment on some aspect of the work. However, you should avoid these general questions later in your presentation (see above).
- Make sure you actually talk about the papers we read. One of the most common presentation mistakes is to go off on too many tangents and spend little or no time actually talking about the work that we all read. The majority of your presentation/discussion should directly relate to the material in the papers.
- Finally, MAKE SURE YOU READ THE PRESENTATION GRADING RUBRIC AND SCORE YOURSELF ACCORDING TO THIS RUBRIC. If
you do everything the rubric tells you to do, you should get a good
grade on the presentation. It's shocking how many students seem
surprised by the rubric after their presentation even though it's
freely available to reference.
You should prepare your presentation in advance (Power Point slides recommended, but not required), and practice it with your partner before you present to the class. In addition, you must meet with mewith a rough draft of your presentation 2 days before you are scheduled to present (at the latest). I.e., for a Wednesday presentation, you must meet with me on Monday, and for a Monday presentation you should meet with me via Skype/Google docs on Friday.
Grading
Like the reading responses, the paper presentations are open-ended on purpose. You will be graded on the following:
- Content: How well did you relate the papers to the central concepts in the course? Did you do sufficient background research?
- Depth of discussion: How successfully did you identify interesting issues to discuss?
- Presentation organization: Was your presentation well thought out and organized?
- Presentation style: How was your speaking style? Did you successfully incorporate other members of the class into the discussion?