Assessment

Overview

There are three forms of assessment for this seminar. They break down as follows:

Assessment Due Date Worth
Portfolio (Sem 1) Weekly (each class) 15%
Presentation (Sem 1) Arranged 0%
Essay 31 January 2025 40%
Portfolio (Sem 2) Weekly (each class) 15%
Presentation (Sem 2) Arranged 30%

Good Scholarly Practices

All work submitted for assessment in this course should be carried out following the University’s policies on Good Scholarly Practice.

Portfolio

Over the course of each semester, you will build a portfolio of reflections on required papers. Each week, you will complete two reading responses in class based on the assigned readings, one for the Tuesday class and one for the Thursday class. You will also complete group discussion activities on your weekly discussion day, and presentation feedback activities on presentation day.

  • Occasionally, the reading response portion of your portfolio might be assigned as a take-home activity to complete before class, but the majority of them will be done as in-class activities.
  • You are welcome to have the paper in front of you (in printed or electronic form), as well as any notes you yourself took, but you should not access the Internet, ChatGPT, or other sources during the reading response.
  • The reading responses are to be completed individually. You may not work with others or discuss your response while you are writing it.

The goal of the weekly reading responses, group discussions, and presentation feedback activities is to ensure that you are keeping up with the readings as well as to give you a chance to reflect on the material on your own and in small group conversations.

Portfolios will be marked at the end of the semester. Five of the 20 reading responses, plus any group discussion or presentation feedback activities on those days, can be missing, no questions asked and no detriment to the marks. Otherwise, no extensions.

For reading responses and group discussion activities, these portfolio entries will be marked according to:

  • Does the entry demonstrate knowledge of the reading(s)?
  • Does the entry demonstrate thoughtful engagement with the prompt?

For presentation feedback activities, these portfolio entries will be marked according to:

  • Does the entry demonstrate attention to / engagement with the presentation?

Essay

The essay assignment will involve reading a small number of papers related to cognitive modelling, and then writing an analysis of these papers.

  • The choice of papers will be up to you (pending instructor approval).
  • Your essay can include references and some discussion of papers that have been assigned or presented in Semester 1, but the primary papers you choose for your essay will need to be different.

More details of the essay assignment will be posted in early October, including how to structure the content of your essay, essay format and length, and marking guidelines.

Presentation

You will do two presentations over the course of the year, each on a cognitive modelling paper. In Semester 1, your paper will be assigned to you. In Semester 2, you will be able to present on a paper of your choice, with instructor approval.

Your Semester 1 presentation will be marked for feedback, but the mark will not count towards your course grade. Your Semester 2 presentation will be marked and will count towards your course grade.

Format

  • Plan on presenting for 25 minutes, followed by 10 minutes discussion/questions. We will give you time indicators and cut you off at 30 minutes regardless of whether you are done; if you aren’t, it is likely to affect your mark.

  • Your presentation should use slides, and your slides should be well organized and use visuals clearly and effectively.

Topic Assignment

For the first semester, topics and papers have been prepared for you. You should have a look at the topics on the website and fill out the topic selection survey (link can be found on Learn) by the end of class on Thursday, September 26.

For the second semester, you will be asked to propose your own topic and paper.

To propose your own topic (Semester 2 Presentations Only):

  • You should select one background paper for the seminar to have people read. This can be a review paper, a paper describing behavioral experiments, etc.
  • You should prepare a reflection question that you would like to class to think about in their reading response for this paper.
  • You should select one cognitive modelling paper that you will present to the class.
  • Your paper choices will need to be approved by the instructor.
  • These papers can also be part of the topic of your essay.

Content

Presentations should include:

  • An introduction to the topic: what is the psychological phenomenon being modelled, and what question(s) are being addressed in the paper? How do they tie in with some of the big questions we’ve discussed in class?
  • An explanation of the proposed model (or models), including what types of representations and processes it uses, and why these are considered to be significant in terms of cognitive science.
  • A discussion of experiments done with the model and results obtained.
  • Some analysis of the model and results, e.g. What are its strengths and weaknesses? What does it include? What does it leave out?
  • Your opinions and reactions to this paper. Were you convinced by the arguments made in the paper? Were there parts of the paper that you disagreed with? What other information or experiments would you have liked to see?

Good presentations will also normally include examples, figures, or diagrams to illustrate important concepts or results.

NOTE: 25 minutes is not a long time! You will need to decide how much detail is appropriate, and which information is most important. Please do not try to present everything. Remember, all students in the class will have read the required papers, but not your assigned presentation paper. Prepare your background slides with this in mind.

Citations

  • You may find that it is useful to include images, figures, or tables from the papers you are discussing or other sources. If you do so, you must cite your sources, even if the source appears to be clear from context. Papers should be cited as (Lastname, year) on the slide, with a full citation on a separate References slide at the end. Web sources should be cited by URL.
  • Direct quotations may also be used if cited (as above), but note that long quotations are often a crutch used instead of actually understanding the material and being able to restate it in your own words. Use quotations with care.

Logistics

  • You may run your presentation off of your own laptop or off of the standard computer in the room. On your presentation day, please plan to arrive a few minutes early so that you have time to test out your presentation before class.
  • If you plan to use the whiteboard in addition to your slides, it is your responsibility to make sure that the classroom has a whiteboard and that you have markers that work (especially in Semester 1 as we are in different classrooms in different weeks).

Submitting slides the night before - REQUIRED

  • You will need to submit your slides on Learn by 7:00 p.m. the night before your presentation. Please submit your slides in PDF format. (It’s ok if animations, videos, etc. don’t show up in the PDF version of your slides. You can run the actual presentation using whatever presentation software you prefer to use.)
  • We have intentionally set the deadline on the previous night so that you will not be tempted to stay up late working on your slides. Not sleeping enough is a great recipe for a poor presentation.

Presentation Guidelines and Marking

For tips on presentation content, see the recorded lecture on Learn: “Lecture on Decoding Papers”.

  • A link to the lecture recording and to the accompanying slides can be found on the main content tab on Learn (under the folder for Tue Oct 1).
  • This lecture should help you in reading your paper and identifying which parts of the content and themes you want your presentation to focus on.

For tips on presentation style, see the recorded lecture on Learn: “Lecture on Giving Good Presentations”.

  • A link to the lecture recording and to the accompanying slides can be found on the main content tab on Learn (under the folder for Tue Oct 1).
  • This lecture should help you in finding ways to engage your audience during your presentation, designing your slides, and avoiding bad presentation habits.

Presentations will be marked in five categories:

  • Content
  • Critical thinking
  • Organization and storytelling
  • Visual effectiveness
  • Delivery

Click here for a copy of the full rubric.