Seminar Participation                                        

Reading

Burns and Sinfield (2016) Chapter 9 How to get on in Groups.

Burns and Sinfield (2016) Chapter 12.3 How to deliver excellent presentations

How seminars work at RMC

Senior (300-400 level) courses are usually seminar courses. Seminars may be capped at 15 or 30 students. Thirty is a lot for a seminar and is unusual. Many are as small as five or ten students Most of the courses listed for you in the syllabus are seminar courses, and you can see the course outlines attached.  Look at the distribution of marks. Many will include marks for participation, presentations, or reports in class. A common pattern is that the first five or six weeks will be mainly led by the professor, establishing the groundwork or theory, with the remainder of the classes led by the students, sometimes alone and sometimes in teams or pairs, usually driven by class size. You can look at outline and see what the presentations or research reports will be about based on the content and readings each week.  

If you are working in a group, get together and plan early. This may be difficult, because cadets often prefer to do things at the last minute. They have lots of other commitments to juggle, while you are focused on being students first.

The classes are 50 minutes, and there may be two or more groups presenting. 5-10 slides with voice-over and questions from the group is fairly common. Alternative formats involving imagination (like simulations, games, or videos) are worth considering. The Majors on JCSP in Toronto do this now to good effect.  

Your classmates

Cadets are not quite like soldiers or students.  They have multiple cross-cutting identities: to squadron, to graduating year, to varsity team-mates or fellow bandsmen, to academic program and to specific wing-mates. These are easy to identify in person, where year and squadron and band status are on their uniforms. I don’t know how it will play out in a dispersed situation.

It will also be harder to meet and hang out with cadets to get a feel for how they think and work.

The 2018-2019 cohort established a Moodle channel called “Ask a Chief / Demandez à un chef” which was a forum where chiefs posted 60 second self-introductions and cadets could ask questions.  All IV cadets were automatically enrolled in this “online class”. In 2018-2019 it had relatively little uptake – only a handful of questions. The Chiefs were relatively accessible in the corridors. It might be worth re-visiting for this year.

Working in groups

A professor’s nightmare is an unprepared and unresponsive group. They walk in like zombies, slump in their chairs, haven’t read or prepared, doze and look at their phones, are visibly doing something else or chatting about unrelated subjects. The online version of this is a name on a screen with no video and no audio, which might be necessary because of bandwidth.

A professor’s dream is a prepared and engaged group. They arrive early, have read the material, have questions, can’t wait to discuss it, get excited by the subject and bring extra insights to the class that are not part of the reading, but connect it to other subects in the course or current events.

Often professors will start the class with a question about what is going on in the real world and how it relates to the subject matter of the course.

Participation marks are usually awarded for quality and quantity of contributions.  You can ask for the specific rubric or guidelines, and sometimes they are spelled out on the syllabus in detail.

Here are the basics of seminar participation:

1.    Do the reading or preparation ahead of the class; refresh just before the class begins

2.    Prepare at least one or two questions of clarification based on the readings or materials

3.    Show up to the class

4.    When the professor asks questions, actively prepare an answer

5.    Consider framing your answer as a 60 second summary (see below)

6.    When you engage in seminar, try to acknowledge what has been said by others in the class, relate it to the subject of the seminar or course, link it to learning objectives

7.    Don’t monopolize the floor

8.    Be respectful and supportive of others

9.    Don’t accept rude or dismissive behaviour

The 60-Second Summary

A 60-second summary (60s) is an exercise in clear and effective communication.

The Norwegian Military Academy developed it as a leadership exercise. Their cadets (speaking and studying in English as a second language) practice summarizing academic journal articles, situation assessments, news stories, or analytical exercises. They are evaluated on their presentations by academic and military assessors for insight, clarity, and supporting content.

A good 60s:

•    uses the full time available (like snap shooting, if you know the target is going to be there for 5 seconds, use all the time to hit the target)

•    begins with the punchline (i.e. it answers the question in a sentence)

•    keeps sentences short and clear, natural order, active voice

•    includes description, analysis, and explanation as appropriate according to the question or task

•    restates the question in an answerable way,if the question is complex or unclear

•    addresses the audience in language they understand, using examples or metaphors that make sense in the context of the question

To prepare for a 60s,

•    don't start speaking until you know your first sentence

•    organize your thoughts quickly, focusing first on the aim

•    have three points in mind before you start speaking

•    always begin with the answer or key point in a single, simple sentence

To practice for 60s

•    practice active listening (https://www.mindtools.com/CommSkll/ActiveListening.htm)

•    practice active reading (https://mcgraw.princeton.edu/active-reading-strategies)

•    identify key points

•    organize information as bullet points and key sentences

To use 60s as a study tool:

•    practice reducing key ideas to a header and 3-5 points that are easily remembered

•    this is particularly useful for definitions and concepts

•    if you are a visual learner, (https://www.learning-styles-online.com/style/visual-spatial/) remember the pictures associated with a 60s; colours and shapes may help

•    if you are an auditory learner (https://www.thoughtco.com/auditory-learning-style-p3-3212038 )  practice reciting key points; rhymes or rhythm can help

Presenting in seminar

Burns and Sinfield (2016) Chapter 12.3 How to Deliver Excellent Presentations

Few NEPDP students will have difficulty with presentations. Your instructional methods training will have prepared you well to present. Engaging cadets and satisfying professors will also come easily to most of you.

A presentation is a way of conveying information that you have gathered through research. Begin by doing the research. When you have the facts, prepare the outline and script the talk, taking delivery time and audience into account. Be prepared to use slides or posters to reinforce the content, and keep you on track.  

As you will read in Burns and Sinfield (225-238), a presentation is a talk, an act, an interaction, and a formal set of rules or conventions established by the course requirements or professor. The typical pattern for a presentation, as for a paper, is to say what you are going to say, say it, and say what you have said—introduction, body, conclusion.

Introduction: who are you, what are speaking about, and why should your audience listen. Presentations are usually more effective if they argue a point (refer back to critical thinking) which is specifically related to the course subject.

Body of the presentation:  You typically have space and time for only about three to five main points. If there’s a lot more detail, then a written handout is a good idea.  Use the presentation to refer to the handout.  

Conclusion: since you will probably be evaluated partly on the extent to which you can engage the class, it’s useful to include some prompts for questions or discussion in your conclusion – controversial remarks, throw-backs to previous presentations, or remarks directed at engaging specific classmates with known views.

I probably don’t need to tell experienced folk like you that planning, preparation (see the ten steps, Burns and Sinfield 11.3) practice and performance will make for a good presentation.

Presenting in VTC

Doing a presentation online creates different challenges, but the same basic process applies.  In order to practice, you can ask your prof to open BBB at other than class times, or you can use the free Zoom app, or just rehearse in front of your laptop camera (e.g. QuickTime on an Apple). Ask classmates to share in the rehearsal on Zoom of BBB so you can practice sharing screens, or testing camera fields if you are using a poster or whiteboard.

Next: Researching and writing