CMM 478--Senior Seminar

'Capstone Course'

Spring 2005

Instructor:  Edward Woods

Office:          Smith Hall 250

Office Hours:   MW--12-2; T 2-4

Phone: 696.3104 Office: 696.2814 Fax

E-mail: woods@marshall.edu

Course Description:

This course fulfills the capstone experience requirement for your soon to be achieved degree in our wonderful Communication Studies! Drawing on the catalogue description, this course is about your developing, organizing revising, and presenting major projects that demonstrate your competence in the discipline. What that translates into is an oral presentation and a term paper. You have done that before. What's new is that the oral and written components report on an original study.

Course Objectives

When finished with this Capstone Experience component of the Marshall Plan, you should be able to:

1. Meet the competencies designed by the discipline for the graduating major.

2. Integrate knowledge from multiple disciplines.

3. Demonstrate problem-solving skills and ability to analyze critically.

4. Demonstrate reflection, self-awareness and self-assessment abilities.

5. Demonstrate "sense-making" the ability to apply knowledge to lived experience.

6. Demonstrate skills through a tangible product--your study!

7. Demonstrate the ability to collaborate, work on a team, and listen effectively.

Course Requirements

1. Students are required to complete a senior project outlined in the accompanying materials. An oral presentation must be made at the College of Liberal Arts Undergraduate Research and Creativity Conference April 18-19. A written essay must also be submitted no later than April 26, 2005. The seminar grade will be based primarily on the final essay.

2. In addition to the final product for the senior project, students are required to meet several deadlines during the semester for submitting various materials relating to the project from a draft proposal to a draft of the essay. It is important that these interim deadlines be observed to allow the development process time to bring out the optimum work you are able to achieve. Student-faculty interaction is a must during this process. You must obtain a faculty mentor for your project as appropriate.

3. Students will be asked to participate in several activities during the semester. Although these activities are ungraded, students are expected to participate.

Attendance

Attendance is required each week. Students who exceed one absence in the semester are required to provide documentation in accordance with the University Absence Policy, explained on pp. 120-121 in the 2003-2005 Undergraduate Catalog. Failure to provide documentation is liable to result in the student's final grade being lowered.

Academic Honesty

The minimum penalty for serious violations of the University Policy on Academic Honesty is failure for the course. Plagiarism, representing the work of another as your own, and fabricating or falsifying research data are serious violations of the existing policy.

Tentative Course Outline

January 11        Introduction to the course--Assignment of Project Proposal Draft

January 18        Discussion of Project Proposal Draft Progress

January 25        First Draft of Project Proposal Due

February 1       Return of First Draft

February 8       Accessing scholarly research in communication

                        Making use of Career Services

February 15     Final (hopefully) draft of Project Proposal Due

February 22     Discussion: What can be done to improve the experience of being a major                                 in communication Studies?

March 1           Outline of Literature Review Due

                        (As I put this syllabus together, last year March 1 was the deadline for               submitting an application to the COLA Conference

March 8           Return literature review outlines; individual conferences to be scheduled

March 15         Outline of Project available for peer review

March 22         Spring Break--No class!

March 29         Completed written draft of Project due

April 5              Making oral presentations in a professional setting

April 12            Rehearse conference presentations

April 18/19       COLA UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH AND CREATIVITY                          CONFERENCE

April 26            Final Papers Due

                        Course assessment/Exit interviews

May 3              Final Exam Time (Only we don't have one)

Grade Composition

20%    will be comprised of your on-time participation in activities and meeting deadlines. If you present at the COLA Conference, you will be accorded 10% of the 20% participation grade. If for some reason, you do not present at the conference, then you will deliver your presentation to the class for a grade comprising 10% of the course grade. For example, if your presentation receives an 85%, then you will earn 8.5% out of 10%.

80% of your grade will be derived from the completed paper due April 26. The attached description sets forth the criteria for evaluating the paper.

Drop Dates—We are asked by the College of Liberal Arts to provide the following information about drop dates:

                        W period begins Tues., January 18

                        W period ends Fri., March 21

                        March 24-April 29—Complete withdrawals only