Saturday, May 26, 2007

Project Guidelines

Project Purpose:
  • Deepen students’ understanding about psychology topics that pique their individual interests
  • Sharpen students’ investigative & critical thinking skills
  • Introduce students to APA style
  • give students an opportunity to exhibit competence outside of the written examination paradigm
Project Overview:
  • Pick a topic in psychology that is of interest to you or your group.
  • Prepare a 10-15 minute presentation in the manner of your choice to present to the class at the end of the semester.
  • Include a complete bibliography formatted in APA style.
  • Choose a presentation style that you think best captures the essence of your topic.
  • Tell me what YOU think. Don’t just regurgitate what “they” said.
Scoring Criteria:
  • Creativity: 20 points max
  • Content: 20 points max
  • Clarity: 20 points max
  • Bibliography: 20 points max
  • Participation: 20 points max
Project Timeline:
  • Identify teams & topics Thursday, June 12, 2008
  • Short statement/Bibliography Thursday, June 19, 2008
  • Outlines/Mockups Thursday, June 26, 2008
  • Presentations Wednesday, July 2, and Thursday, July 3, 2008
Presentation Format:
  • approximately 10-15 minute presentation by all team members
  • approximately 5 minutes question/answer
  • time boundaries will need to be strictly monitored so that everyone has time to present
Some Topic Ideas:
  • The Nature/Nurture Debate
  • Daycare: Beneficial or harmful to child development?
  • What is intelligence and how do we measure it?
  • Is the nursing home environment detrimental to aging people?
  • Compare/Contrast famous theorists (Erickson/Piaget, et cetera)
Some Project Ideas:
  • Poster presentation
  • PowerPoint/Keynote presentation
  • Make up a game/study aid & demonstrate
  • Write a song
  • Perform a skit
  • Movie/Picture montage
Important Points to Remember:
  • Use proper spelling and grammar
  • Cite everything!
  • Have fun & be creative
APA style (light - very light)

Basic page setup:
1" Margins
Times New Roman or similar font (no fancy/fun/weird fonts)
Same font throughout
Font size 12 throughout

Citations:
Journal Articles:
Author, J. B. & Another, T. C. (2007). Title of the journal article. Title of the Journal, (volume#)issue#, 134-145.

Books:
Author, J. B. & Another, T. C. (2007). Title of the Book. City: Publisher.

Websites:
Author, J. B. & Another, T. C. (2007). Webpage Title. Available: http://psyc2301.blogspot.com. Accessed January 17, 2007.

Common writing pitfalls!

Know the Difference!

There - They’re - Their

There - someplace away from the speaker, as in “over there”
They’re - a contraction meaning, “They are.”
Their - a possessive pronoun meaning, “Something belonging to them."

Its - It’s

It’s - a contraction meaning, “It is.”
Its - a possessive pronoun meaning, “something belonging to it.”

No comments: