Students will give a checkpoint presentation during the final exam period. These presentations should be 16-18 minutes long, which will be followed by 5 minutes for questions and answers.

This presentation should begin with a full introduction to your project as if you were talking to an audience who is not familiar with your project or your work this semester. This introduction is a practice run for your final presentation at the end of the year, when friends, family, faculty, staff and students from beyond our class will be invited to attend. The most important thing for the introduction to do is to ensure that the audience has a clear picture of what your project is, what its purpose is and to have an appreciation for why people beyond this course care about it. The introduction should also give the audience the context and background that they need in order to understand the remainder of your presentation. Oh, and also draw then in so that they are interested in hearing what else you have to say! I would expect the introduction to take 3-5 minutes but the exact length will depend upon the project, your approach and organization and how the material in the introduction relates to and supports the remainder of your presentation.

The remainder of the presentation should be a Project Checkpoint presentation as described on the Course Syllabus. Clearly it will not be possible to present all of the details of everything that you have done since the first check point. Instead, pick a few of the most interesting or important topics and weave them into a compelling story. Each topic should be clearly contextualized so that the audience can understand how it relates to the overall project. Similarly the level of detail and presentation mechanisms for each topic should be chosen so that the target audience is able to understand what you have accomplished. Being comprehensive is not essential. Items that are not discussed in detail can simply be listed and briefly mentioned. You should be sure to conclude with some comments about what has been learned, what impediments are being faced and how you plan to attempt to overcome them.

Your presentation score will count as the presentation portion of the second Project Checkpoint. The grading criterion for the Final Presentation will the the same as is given in the Project Checkpoint rubric on the Course Syllabus.