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The class project for this course is a written report, accompanied by a PowerPoint or podcast presentation, that addresses the biological study of a specific behavioral or mental phenomenon (normal or pathological) covered in the readings and videos. Please select a behavioral or mental phenomenon such as language or schizophrenia and then select a biological strategy for investigating it, such as hormonal or genetic mechanisms, neurotransmitters, drug treatments, or localization of brain processes by imaging. Your written portion will be worth a maximum of 50 points, and the PowerPoint or podcast that accompanies it will be worth a maximum of 10 points. Thus, the project as a whole will be worth 60 points. Written paper. As an example, the theme of your report might be imaging approaches to the study of schizophrenia. Your paper should summarize fundamental issues, questions, and controversies and provide a general overview of the topic using the biological line of investigation you chose. It should also elaborate on your understanding of the brain processes that are revealed through imaging research in schizophrenia. To accomplish this, you will have to use recent research articles (published within the last five years) to illustrate relevant points. You may use any of a number of electronic databases to find research articles that deal with your topic, including the library and the Internet. The one requirement for the research articles that you select is that two of them must have appeared in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. You may wish to consult with the library staff or your faculty member to confirm whether a particular journal is peer-reviewed. Newspaper or magazine articles should not be used as your major reference, but they are sometimes useful when they lead you to the appropriate research article. You should avoid simply repeating the articles in summary form, but rather use them within the text of your paper to illustrate important points. You are welcome to discuss your choice of topic with your faculty member to make sure you are on the right track. Your paper should be 1,600 words, or about 6 to 8 pages, in length (use the word count as a guide to length). It must be typed, double-spaced, with one-inch margins, and fully referenced in APA format (seehttp://www.apa.org). Please check the course schedule in this syllabus for the due date. The penalty for a late project is ten percent of the score on the project. The text of your paper should be preceded by an abstract (about 100 words) that summarizes the key points in the paper (i.e., statement of problem, major findings, conclusions). Please post your abstract in the Weekly Bulletin Board conference for other class members to read, and respond to their abstracts for a stimulating discussion. You may wish to submit a draft of your complete or near complete paper to the Effective Writing Center (EWC at http://www.umuc.edu/writingcenter/writingresources/faq.cfm ) for review and comment, prior to the due date of the paper. This should be submitted well in advance of the due date, in order for the EWC to respond and for you to make the necessary corrections. Once you receive feedback from the EWC, you can copy and paste it into a Word Document, then post it in your assignment folder with your project paper by the due date, for your instructor to view as necessary. The EWC can help address questions regarding format, structure, writing style, and appropriateness of references. PowerPoint presentation. The PowerPoint presentation should summarize and illustrate the topic of your written paper. The main purpose of this is to familiarize you with the most widely used state-of-the-art presentation form, to augment information in the paper, and to share your work with other class members. The PowerPoint presentation should consist of a minimum of 6 slides of the area in your written report. If you do not have access to PowerPoint, you may use free, publicly available software such as Prezi or Open Office Impress instead. Consider the following tips in preparing your presentation:
8.avoid ending your presentation abruptly—you might end your slide with a quote, a simple question, or the next steps Podcast presentation. The podcast should be targeted to the public and should summarize and discuss the topic of your written paper. It should not be a verbatim reading of your paper. You will record your spoken comments with a microphone and audio software, then upload your audio file to class. You will need to create an audio story (approaching it the same way you would any other story or essay) on your paper topic. The podcast should be in MP3 format of five minutes’ length or 5 mB file size. You may download free audio recording software athttp://audacity.sourceforge.net/ . See the Weekly Bulletin Board conference for tips on how to make and use podcasts. Please note: The class project will be used to fulfill a requirement within the Senior Seminar in Psychology (PSYC 495) capstone course, not only for students who have matriculated under the 2011-2012 catalog who are required to take this course but for others for whom it is an elective. Please retain an electronic version of the graded project that you can submit when required during the capstone coursework.
PROJECT RESOURCES Resources for a slide presentation The class project described in the Syllabus is a written paper accompanied by either PowerPoint slides or a podcast. In this topic we’ll take a look at PowerPoint. If you haven’t used it before, of course your first question will be “What is PowerPoint?”. It is versatile software from Microsoft that is used to present text and graphics in slides. You can buy it at a student discount from UMUC. There is also free software that will do much the same job, sometimes in a different way. If you prefer to buy the software, here’s how. Go to UMUC 360 Support and log in to the MyUMUC website (or start here if you want) and click on the Student Portal link. Then click on the MyUMUC Resources link and select “Educational Software”. With the “Students” tab selected, explore software listings for Microsoft Office and PowerPoint. Microsoft Office is a software suite that includes PowerPoint and other products. Follow directions to purchase by download or DVD. There are versions of PowerPoint for the Mac and the PC. PowerPoint 2007 and PowerPoint 2010 (or 2011 for the Mac) are in wide use, so instructions for both versions are available. That means that you may have to make allowances for differences between a tutorial and the version you are using. See if the following tutorials can get you on your feet fast.
If you prefer the free route, you may download a PowerPoint clone such as OpenOffice Impress from this site and find their other products here. Among the free options, a newly popular presentation tool is Prezi, which strikes some users as simpler and more entertaining. It’s available at http://prezi.com/. An educational free account is available to anyone with a university email account. (UMUC makes these available for free here.) Learn it in an afternoon and use it like a pro! Although it’s not hard to learn, there are a number of things you can do with it, so tutorials may be useful. You may want to look at some of these.
For further help, try the forums for PowerPoint and Prezi users:
If you use an alternative to PowerPoint, please include a note in your upload to tell me which software you used. The project assignment in the Syllabus will ask you to turn in at least six slides. The grading rubric will give you some ideas of what to include in your presentation. If you have trouble getting started, give some thought to a strategy. Here are seven styles for presentation that may give you an idea. The assertion-evidence style has attracted interest in scientific and medical presentations. Some people go even deeper, but you don’t really have to match the profound meditators on the subject. If all you want are tips, hints, tools, and reminders, you’re on your way. These examples may indicate what not to do. Have fun! Resources for a podcast The class project described in the Syllabus is a written paper accompanied by either PowerPoint slides or a podcast. In this topic we’ll take a look at podcasting. If this is new to you I would suggest browsing the websites below before installing and using Audacity. Doing it right the first time is by far the easiest path to success! Podcasts If you have not made a podcast before, welcome to sound communication on the Internet! It is probably familiar to you from a variety of sources. For example, here is the history of brain research in ten 15-minute podcasts that you could have made yourself with the techniques discussed below. To set the stage, you may be interested in the following answers to your question, “What is a podcast?”
Your podcast should have at least a length of five minutes or a file size of 5 mB in MP3 format. What is MP3? It’s explained at this site and at that one. Using Audacity software, each minute of monaural recorded speech in MP3 format occupies about 1 mB in file size. To make a podcast you will need a microphone connected to your computer (or look for free apps that will let you record a podcast on your iPhone or Android phone–or find a laptop with an internal microphone). I have found that the microphone included in my headset, Microsoft model LifeChat LX-3000, has been more than adequate. Some folks may prefer more or less than that, so here are some reviews and sources for equipment. I have no connection with any of the suppliers and of course I can’t guarantee that your experience will be as rewarding as mine has been; but best wishes. (For shoppers, price alert services are becoming common but I haven’t used them.)
Audacity You’ll begin by downloading free Audacity software. Depending on the version you download, you may also need to download a free plug-in called “Lame MP3” to allow you to store your recording in MP3 format, so I’ve included information about that, too, which you’ll find at the following sites.
Your first trial with Audacity should begin with your microphone installed and turned on, so that you can try out the suggestions from your tutors. I’d recommend browsing the sites below in order to gain familiarity with what you’ll be doing.
For a quick production you’ll record your podcast, save it, and upload it for class. For a little more polish, you might want to amplify, compress, or normalize your recording, as this video shows. Here’s a faster route to the same goal. You can get Levelator here, learn more about it there, and find Audio Boo over there. You can pick up additional tips from this audio blog. Is Audacity working for you now? Then you’re on your way. Here are some tutorials to help you to greater proficiency.
The following material is entirely optional. As you become familiar with Audacity you may become interested in special effects, like enhancing your voice or adding a music track to speech. Keep in mind that tutorials may vary in the version of Audacity that they use. You may have to make allowances for slight differences from your own version.
Audacity is not the only free tool for podcasting. Podproducer, Ardour, and Wildvoice Studio are available at no charge, but I don’t know whether the software is kept current or how large its user base might be. Mac users may prefer GarageBand. I have not used any of these. For further help, try the forums for Audacity users:
What if nothing works for you? That’s unlikely to happen, but you may then wish to turn to a PowerPoint presentation as an alternative. That’s discussed in the next topic. But even if you can’t record a podcast for your class project, you aren’t forever barred from making sound presentations. The alternatives (not for class but for your own use) include Podcast hosting
Here’s one thing you don’t want to do. Otherwise, enjoy yourself!
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