Prepare students for giving a research presentation, contributed by Daniela Raicu, DePaul University

Idea: Prepare students for research; many students like to do programming only and like to stay away from presenting their work either because they never gave a research presentation before or they feel nervous about giving presentations in front of big audiences; an REU site is the right place to nurture students on how to give presentations, review and write research papers.
Objective: Prepare students for giving a research presentation
What works well:

Ask students to regularly give presentations to the REU group (informal and formal presentations)
Ask students to attend seminars where graduate students or faculty are presenting
Teach students on how to give a good research talk (PPT presentation on this topic; MedIX site offers this presentation during week 3 or 4 of the program)
Mentors should review and provide feedback on their students’ presentations
Encourage students to attend conferences relevant to their project topic and present their work at conferences

What doesn’t work well: Assuming that the students will be know all the steps needed to present a paper to a conference
Assessment data: Answers on students’ surveys showed that the students felt more confident in their presentation skills after being part of the REU program during which they had to give two formal presentations of their research work, one formal presentation on a research paper relevant to their work, and short informal presentations on the status of their project every Friday at the REU site group meetings.

Contributed by Daniela Raicu, DePaul University