Preparing your lecture and leading discussion
For one session during this quarter, you will have the responsibility of
preparing a lecture and leading the class through a discussion of your assigned
topic. Each session will be 60 minutes long; you should plan on lecturing
for at most 15-20 minutes, and guiding a group discussion for the remaining
35-40 minutes. The goal of this is two-fold: to teach the class the course
material for your session, and to teach you how to lead lectures/discussions
effectively.
I have selected between three and four papers for each topic/session.
Your job is to familiarize yourself with all of these papers, and to select one
(or at most two, if you can justify the need to me) to assign to everybody else
in class. You don't have to limit your lecture and the discussion topics to the
paper that you assign, but if you want to talk about ideas in non-assigned
papers, you will need to introduce them during the lecture portion of your
session. Similarly, if there is a paper that you want people to read that
isn't in the candidate set, you can assign it, if you convince me that it is
appropriate.
Here's all of the things you need to do, specifically:
- During the first week of class, I will be assigning topics and lecture
dates to students. Sign up for something that you are curious and
excited about, since this will add energy to your lecture.
- Quickly familiarize yourself with the candidate papers for your topic, and
decide which one (or at most two, if you can justify it to me)
everybody else should read.
- deliverable: decide on which
paper you want to assign at least 9 days before it is scheduled
during class, and let me know so that I can update the class web page.
- Prepare a lecture on the topic, produce lecture slides that we can link
into the class web page, and prepare to lead a class discussion on the
topic.
- deliverable: at least 5
days before your scheduled session, have a 60 minute chat with me to
talk through what you want to say, show me your draft slides, etc.
You are responsible for coordinating and confirming the 60 minute
slot with me.
- deliverable: immediately
after class, come talk to me for 15 minutes to go over what you did
well, what you did poorly, and so on. I have reserved time after
each class for this.
Tips on lecturing
Coming soon...
Tips on guiding discussion
Coming soon...