devry SPCH275 full course project latest 2015 spring [ week 5 and 8 ]

Basic Goals | General Description | Suggested Milestones | Course Project Proposal (due Week 5) | Course Project Team Presentation Requirements (due Week 8) |Course Project Team Presentation Breakdown | Best Practices

Basic Goals

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Through this Course Project, you are expected to do the following:

• Meet regularly throughout the session to ensure that the project is fully prepared and rehearsed.
• Collaborate on messaging for a persuasive presentation.
• Create visual communication to reinforce the team presentation’s messages.
• Seek to resolve any conflict within the group in a healthy manner.
• Rehearse and present a team-based presentation.
• Communicate frequently throughout the session with the team about your progress.
• Own the responsibility of the group’s collective strengths and weaknesses, triumphs and mistakes, and intermediate and final deliverables.

General Description

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As a team, you will deliver a persuasive presentation via web conferencing, targeted to a specific audience of your choice. It may be a presentation for a professional, civic, or personal context (subject to approval by your professor). These are a few examples of the many possibilities a team may take for this presentation.

• To persuade a group of venture capitalists to invest in a smartphone app
• To persuade a group of college students to participate in a political rally
• To persuade a group of volunteers to staff a nonprofit’s fundraising event
• To persuade a group of artists to contribute to a songwriting competition

Developing your team’s specific purpose and thesis statements will take some effort, so it will be to your team’s benefit to start as early as possible. A suggested schedule is provided below to assist you in managing time. Graded deliverables for this project include the following.

• Project Proposal (due Week 5)
• Course Project Presentation and Documentation (due Week 8)

Suggested Milestones

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The following schedule is an overall suggestion for making a little progress each week on the project and not waiting for the bulk of the work to take place at the end of the course. It does not provide every step you need to take but does give you a general guideline for having things completed incrementally. Feel free to adjust this list as necessary and with the consultation of your professor.

Week 2: Read through guidelines thoroughly and post any questions to the Q & A Forum. Begin initial contact with your teammates. Become acquainted with one another (if not already), and think about your initial thoughts for the project.

Week 3: Consult with your professor as needed for guidance in the early stages. You may consider establishing a team contract or establishing formal roles within the group.

Week 4: Start to sketch out your ideas using the preparation process outlined in the Week 3 Lecture, and begin looking in the library for suitable research references to support your ideas. Aim to have a topic selected by the end of the week, and run it by your professor if you have any questions.

Week 5: Focus mainly on the proposal due at the end of the week, because this is a graded component. Consider also beginning work on the team’s preparation outline and then the visual aids necessary.

Week 6: Address any of the proposal feedback and concerns of your professor. Finalize an outline and the visual aids for the presentation. Individual rehearsals should begin, as should team rehearsals, using the iConnect room.

Week 7: Incorporate any relevant audience engagement strategies your team has chosen. Schedule several rehearsals with the team, and record at least one for observation and reflection. Take a break and come back to rehearse again, only this time aim to address some of the concerns noticed in the previous rehearsal. The point is to get several different sessions of rehearsal, not simply one crammed together.

Week 8: Finalize rehearsals, ensure that documentation is ready and available to the team, and have a great presentation!

Course Project Proposal (due Week 5)

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As a team, you should submit a proposal of your Course Project Team Presentation. In this document, you should include the following relevant information.

• Listing of all team members (with any assigned titles)
• Specific purpose
• Thesis statement
• Two or three references listed in APA style from the DeVry University Library that would support the topic
• Description of the audience for this presentation
• Explanation of how the presentation will target this audience specifically
• Assignment of roles and responsibilities, with specific tasks for each team member
• Rehearsal schedule with specific dates, times, and time zones for the meetings

Treat this as a formal report, and aim to be as thorough as possible. The team’s proposal should be around two or three pages. All team members need to submit a copy of the proposal to the Dropbox by the end of Week 5. This assignment is worth 50 points.

Course Project Team Presentation Requirements (due Week 8)

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• Content: The presentation needs to be persuasive in tone and execute a fully developed persuasive strategy that is supported by electronic visual aids. Any techniques used in supporting the content should be the result of careful planning, editing, and rehearsal.
• Preparation: The presentation needs to be fully rehearsed with all team members and with all technology components (e.g., PowerPoint, web conferencing, etc.). The preparation should also incorporate all four canons of rhetoric (invention, arrangement, style, and delivery) in designing and delivering the messaging.
• Timing: The presentation should be an appropriate length, and gauging your presentation’s length should be part of your rehearsal process. Generally, each person should speak for 5–6 minutes. For groups with more than five people, consult with your professor on appropriate timing.
• Research: The presentation needs to make a meaningful integration of research, which includes both written and oral components. A references list with at least seven to eight DeVry University Library sources should be part of the outline, with each reference parenthetically cited on the outline. During the delivery of the presentation, there should be an oral citation for every reference item.
• Documentation: The group needs to submit a presentation outline written in complete sentences (along with a references list), a copy of the PowerPoint file (and any other visual aids used in the presentation), and any handouts the team may choose to distribute during or after the presentation.

Course Project Team Presentation Breakdown

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Best Practices

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1. Teams should begin communicating about this project early in the session.
2. Respect your teammates by responding to your team’s communication with high priority.
3. Hold meetings using the iConnect technology to familiarize yourself with how to use it as a web conferencing tool.
4. Establish a rehearsal schedule for the session as soon as possible.
5. Make as much progress as soon as possible, knowing that revisions to the work will be needed to bring it up to a high level of quality.
6. Expect that there will be some level of disagreement and conflicting schedules among the team. Aim to listen to the team’s individual concerns and also provide solutions that address those concerns.
7. When there are problems with the project or the team, avoid shutting down or hiding. This almost always worsens the problem. Communicate with your team and professor about the challenges you are experiencing, and discuss ways to address those challenges.