-Kaylynn Webb
Monday, November 1, 2010
Peer Presentation Review:1
The first group presentation that I reviewed was Group 4.0. Their discussion topic was historically black colleges and universities. From this topic they developed a central question which was "are HBCU's effective in creating higher success rate in African-American students?" Their methodology for acquiring their information was researching second hand resources such as websites like www.hbcunetwork.com. The question that they posed was intriguing because it relates to all the students in Freshmen Seminar; however, their presentation of the information was not engaging. Throughout the majority of the presentation one student read directly from the powerpoint. Also, the information on the slides was in paragraph/long bullet form. To improve their presentation I would suggest that they find the key points of the information and make SHORT bullets to display on the screen. It is hard for students to understand the important parts of the information if everything on the slide is read and is not simplified enough for note taking. The factual information that I gained from the project was that on average fifty percent of freshmen that attend HBCU'S graduate in four to six years. According to the professor they interviewed, HBCU's are commonly weighted heavier than a predominantly white school. This means that the course level of work is graded meticulously. I agree with the group when they concluded that African-American students perform better at HBCU'S because they are more comfortable in their environment. I personally chose to attend an HBCU because I felt that I would relate to my peers more so than I would at a predominantly white college. Overall the presentation was informative but not engaging.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
On the first of November, members of the group Stampede presented their research on Suicide Amongst African Americans. The question they attempted to answer was “why is suicide rate increasing?” To start off with the pros, the group’s powerpoint slides contained short points, bullets, that were elaborated on by the speaker. This gave the presentation a clean look, avoided congestion, and showed that the specific speaker on the topic at the time had researched enough to know what he or she was explaining. Also, the presentation had well put together charts that showed the statistics and relationship between suicide and African American males and females. Along with that they presented subtopics to discuss reasons why suicide is not talked about in the black community, as well as provided different symptoms that point to suicide, treatments, and ways to prevent it. On the down side, it felt like the entire presentation was directed to the evaluating teacher instead of the full audience. Yes, the teacher is the one grading the presentation but everyone else should not be ignored. They are evaluating the group the same way the teacher is. So my advice to them would have been to engage everyone in the audience and not solely the teacher. Also, the group consistently used first person pronouns when discussing their work. This was a group project so everything should have been stated as “we” instead of “I”. And most importantly, a bibliography of where the information came from should have been included in the powerpoint. For being the first group to present, and probably the first time researching n this manner, I will say that they did ok. As time goes on a better grasp of the research process and presentation requirements will be obtained. One more thing I will comment is the lack of a conclusion. The question asked why is suicide rate increasing, but no where in the presentation was it really answered. For the future, the group should add a conclusion that will answer the question and not merely speak on it. However, as mentioned before, this will all be learned in with time!
ReplyDelete