University of Nebraska Kearney

Departmental seminar presentations 

Semester	Student	I	II	III	IV	V	Average
2003 Spring
	A	65	83	75	94		79.25
	B	73	54				63.5
	C	73					73
	D	55	57				56
	E	77	82	64			74.333
	F	81	61	59			67
2003 Fall
	E	80	84				82
	B	81	85	77			81
2004 Spring
	B	83	85				84
	F	92	73	78			81
	D	84	81				82.5
	H	78	84	68			76.667
	I	77	78				77.5
	E	89	86	81			85.333
2004 Fall
	G	93	94	89	90	92	91.5
	J	80	76	94			83.333
	K	94	92	78			88
	I	95	93	91	84	72	90.75

Students are expected to prepare and present a 45-60 minute PowerPoint presentation for credit in Biology 880, Seminar. The seminars are attended by graduate faculty and graduate students and are presented on Friday afternoons in the Continuing Education Building. The students are required to take seminar three semesters. In one semester, the student presents his or her thesis proposal. In the other semesters, the student presents a seminar on a topic of his or her choosing which has been researched in the primary literature. As part of the seminar series, all presentations are videotaped for later review.

Attending faculty fill out a seminar evaluation sheet . Students are also provided written feedback concerning their seminar. Thus far, 20 student presentations have been evaluated. As shown above, student presentation quality has been judged by one to five faculty members. Although variability of assessment is high, students who have presented a seminar in the previous semester have shown significant improvement.

One reason for relatively low scores is the rubric which assigns 35/100 points to results and discussion. Of course students presenting their thesis proposal do not have these sections fully developed. One solution is to develop a different rubric for thesis proposals than is used for regular seminars. To address this problem, the evaluation rubric has been modified.

2004 Best Departmental Thesis

Student	Points		Average Score
A	12	9	11
B	17	18	18
C	12	9	11
D	18	19	19
Possible	20
The thesis by Ben Zechmann was selected as the Department's nomination for "Best Thesis Award"

Members of the graduate committee reviewed the theses from the three graduate students who completed their degrees in 2004. The theses were reviewed for five traits which represent specific learning objectives. The committee members found all theses to be acceptable (none received more than one score of “Below Average”). The top thesis selected was written by Ben Zechmann. His thesis was submitted for evaluation by the campus committee where it was judged to be the best from the College of Natural and Social Sciences.