Contact Information

Instructor: Prof. Gerard Boychuk

Email: gboychuk@uwaterloo.ca

Office Hours::

Monday 2:30-3:30

Wednesday 8:30-9:30

(or by appointment)

Office: HH 356

Phone: (519)888-4567 x.32900

Class Presentations

Students will be asked to work in teams (comprised of roughly three students each) to brief the class on the assigned topic for that particular date. The briefs will be expected to outline the most important issues raised by a particular topic, outline how those issues fit with the broader set of class discussions and readings to date, and identify the most important topics for class/lecture discussion. Briefings will be expected to be presented in class in the form of a PowerPoint deck which will be available to other students after the class.

At the beginning of the course, students will be asked to identify their top choices in terms of topics and will be assigned to teams by the instructor depending on topic preference and even distribution of students across topics.

While the briefing and decks will be expected to draw on the readings for that topic, it is expected that all students will already have done the relevant assigned readings so the briefings are expected to go beyond the assigned readings in terms of the material covered as well as the readings integrated into the discussion. In most cases, the instructor will provide a set of recommended readings in addition to the assigned course readings to provide a starting point for the briefing team to develop their brief.

The presentation of the brief and deck will take no more than 30 minutes with at least ten minutes allowed for questions and discussion.

Briefing teams are required to provide the instructor with summary briefing notes and an outline of the briefing deck (e.g. pictures, etc. are not required) in electronic format by 5:00 pm on the Wendesday prior to their assigned briefing date (for teams presenting on Monday) or 5:00 pm on the Friday prior to their assigned briefing date (for teams presenting on Wednesday.)