Course description: Graduate level overview of techniques for platform, poster and written scientific presentations. Emphasis will be on oral presentation delivery, proposal development, content organization and audience perspective. The course consists of lectures, student presentations and constructive critiques that takes place intensively over the 5 week course period.

Course number: College Park: MEES 602

Coursemaster: Andrew Kane

Objectives: This course will provide students with inspiration and a conceptualized framework from which to develop well-organized, meaningful scientific presentations. Having successfully completed this course, students will be able to:

Discuss the mission of making scientific presentations;
Formulate effective platform and poster presentations;
Generate appropriate presentation media elements;
Constructively critique scientific presentations;
Draft a scientific proposal;
Develop a resume; and
Deliver informal and formal scientific presentations;

Justification: Development of new instrumentation, medicines and technologies is dependent on rigorous scientific methods and research efforts. However, science in a vacuum is meaningless. It is critical for graduate students, post-doctoral students and other professionals-in-training to be able to communicate their science to a variety of audiences. Although communication techniques should be a part of all courses taught, there is a need for a specific module to focus on the different scientific presentation formats (i.e., oral, poster, written). The need to communicate science is seen in many facets of professional scientists: communicating at scientific meetings, writing manuscripts for professional journals, drafting resumes, interviewing, and sharing techniques with colleagues. This course will build students' communication proficiency by focusing on organizational skills, confidence building, application of appropriate techniques and technology, and providing actual presentation "flight time."

COURSE SCHEDULE:

Date / Day		Time slot(s)	Lecture content
	Thursday September 2nd 0800	3 hours, TBA VetMed conf room	Overview of presentation formats; oral presentation factors; organization of basic presentation elements; data integration, effective media elements. Assignment 1: Develop initial presentation topic. Due Tuesday 9/7/04 by email to Dr. Kane. Send in body of email mssg (not an attachment).
	Thursday September 9th 0800	3 hours, TBA VetMed conf room	Poster design; outreach software; proposal writing. Assignment 2: Proposal rough draft, budget and resume due Tuesday 9/14/04 as three separate email attachments to Dr. Kane. Assignment 3: Develop draft PowerPoint presentation. Due Tuesday 9/14/04 as an email attachment to Dr. Kane.
	Thursday September 16th 0800	3 hours, TBA Meet at Hoff Theater (Stamp Student Union - Ground Floor)	Presentation techniques; large venue experience; attend seminar. Assignment 4: Attend external seminar. Write summary of content and provide presentation critique based on forms provided. Due Tuesday 9/21/04 by email attachment to Dr. Kane. Assignment 5: Develop and submit final proposal. Due Tuesday 9/21/04 as an email attachment to Dr. Kane and classmates.
	Thursday September 23rd 0800	3 hours, TBA VetMed conf room	Proposal presentations and critiques. Assignment 6: Develop final scientific presentation and handout. Due Friday 9/30/04 in class.
	Thursday September 30th 0800	3 hours, TBA VetMed conf room	Scientific presentations and critiques; course summary.

Handouts and Materials (to be updated for 2004):

Syllabus (pdf file)

Overview handout (pdf file)

Constructive critique form (Word file)

Call for proposals (grant writing assignment; pdf file)

Budget form for proposals (xls file)

Proposal writing handout (pdf file)

Additional proposal support materials from NOAA

Proposal review form (pdf file)

Coursemaster: Andrew S. Kane, Ph.D. Email: akane@umaryland.edu Dr. Kane is an Associate Research Scientist in the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Department of Veterinary Medicine at UM College Park, and has secondary appointments in the UM Baltimore Medical School, Department of Epidemiology and Preventative Medicine and Department of Pathology. He is the Director of the University of Maryland's Aquatic Pathobiology Center, and is a full member of the UM Graduate School as well as faculty in the System-wide Program in Toxicology. Dr. Kane's research interests focus in the areas of environmental pathology and toxicology, with emphasis on mechanisms for species-selective toxicity and disease susceptibility. Dr. Kane is currently a principle investigator on multiple Federal and state grants that focus on the effects of environmental pathology, and exposure to toxics and other stressors. Dr. Kane's interests also include the use of dynamic outreach and teaching modules using interactive, computer-based multimedia.