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[color=#000000][size=3][font=source_sans_prosemibold]Restructuring Student Presentations for the Science Classroom[/font][/size][/color] [color=#000000][size=3][font=source_sans_prosemibold][font=source_sans_prolight]In the past I was resistant to oral student presentations in the science classroom for the following reasons:[/font][/font][/size][/color] [ol] [li]The presentations take too long pressuring me to use group presentations to reduce the number.[/li] [li]Student presentations vary in quality and every poor presentation results in gaps in the learning for the class.[/li] [li]If the presentations were done in groups there is invariably an added concern with the equity with which the work was done.[/li] [li][color=#111111][size=2][font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]If the presentations are done as a group, it is difficult to protect the marks of the diligent working kids while maintaining an incentive for more diligent working kids to support their lower achieving peers.[/font][/size][/color][/li] [/ol] [color=#000000][size=3][font=source_sans_prolight]However, I saw an opportunity to use student presentations in my biology course by designing them so that they are individual but range between 2 to 5 mins only.  In addition to prevent the problem with gaps being created by poor presentations, I allow the presentations topics to overlap with respect to learning goal for each one.[/font][/size][/color] [color=#000000][size=3][font=source_sans_prolight]Finally, to encourage higher-order thinking instead of allowing the presentations to focus on just regurgitation of the students reading/research, each student has to face a series of higher-order-thinking questions based on their presentations.  The questioning can take between 2 to 5 mins (so the max time of presentations are 10 min each).[/font][/size][/color] [color=#000000][size=3][font=source_sans_prolight]I would like to see this model extended to other science courses in my dept. but in order for it to work there needs to be a concept that can be easily fragmented into 15 short presentations that overlap in some manner.[/font][/size][/color] [color=#000000][size=3][font=source_sans_prolight]Currently I am using this technique with:[/font][/size][/color] [ol] [li]grade12 university biology to cover concepts the parts of the cell.  Every student has 1 organelle or cellular structure to cover the structure, function and evolution of.  Each organelle/cellular structure is presented by two different students so if one does a poor job I have another student to readdress the issue.[/li] [li]Grade 11 university biology to cover applications and implications of Evolutionary Theory.  Each student is given an article from [url=http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/news/newsarchive_01][color=#23b1a5]Berkeley’s Evolution in the news[/color][/url] to read and summarise to the class.[/li] [/ol] [color=#000000][size=3][font=source_sans_prolight]Can you suggest topics or segments for any other science courses where this can be used?[/font][/size][/color]