UAlbany Showcase

Identify which presentations and poster sessions are taking place during your normal class meeting time. Ask your students to determine which offerings contain concepts from your course and to select one to attend. (Note: The event program will be released closer to the event date.)

Then, consider using one (or a variation) of the assignments below:

Asking Questions: Prepare specific and open-ended questions for the presentation or poster session you have decided to attend.

Report: Write a short report summarizing a presentation or poster session you attended, identifying the following information:  

• Title and brief summary of the project
• Indicate a concept, test or something else relevant to class
• Discuss their thoughts on how the project relates to that concept

Looking for a Major or Minor: View a poster or presentation and take note of the academic discipline in which it was produced. Write down the name of the student's Showcase Advisor and then read the Showcase Advisor's biography on the UAlbany website. Write 250 words on why you think the subject they teach could be a good major or minor for you. 

Connections to the Classroom: Write a 250-word reflection that connects a poster session or presentation you attended to one of the texts you’ve read in class.  

Selfie: Take a selfie in front of a poster, post it to your course’s Brightspace discussion board and explain why you found that poster interesting.

Scavenger Hunt: Find a poster related to the topic of your class. Take a picture of it and in a brief reflection explain how it connects to a topic discussed in class. Post this to your course’s Brightspace discussion board.

Oral Presentation Evaluation: Attend an oral presentation and evaluate the speaker. Consider these questions: What did the speaker do right? What did the speaker do wrong? Was the argument clear? Was there evidence? And did the presenter interpret the evidence in ways that supported the project’s central claims?

Poster Presentation Evaluation: Attend a poster presentation and evaluate the poster’s design as well as the author’s presentation of it. Ask the author, “Can you tell me about your research?” and compare the response to how it was presented on the poster. Consider these questions: What was the poster’s central research question or hypothesis? How was the research conducted? What were the results and were they clearly conveyed?  

Performance Evaluation: Attend an artistic performance and evaluate the work. Consider these questions: Can you connect the performance to themes and/or concepts discussed in class? Did the performance evoke any feelings or emotions? What message did the performance send? 

If your course includes a semester-long project, ask your students to present at Showcase. The Minerva Center for High-Impact Practices has online resources to help your students draft abstracts and create posters. 

If your course does not include a semester-long project, ask your students to attend presentations and/or poster sessions relevant to your course content and provide them with reflection questions to answer.  

Alternatively, identify which presentations and poster sessions are taking place during your normal class meeting time. Ask your students to determine which offerings contain concepts from your course and to select one to attend. (Note: The event program will be released closer to the event date.)

Then, consider using one (or a variation) of the assignments below:

Quotation-Comment-Question (QCQ): Select a quotation from a poster. Interpret and/or comment on that quotation in light of the poster’s subject. And then ask a new question that could form the basis of future research in that subject.

Future Research: After attending Showcase, describe a research project that you would like to conduct and present at next year’s event.

Interdisciplinary Thinking: Visit the posters and/or presentations of an academic discipline different from yours and make connections between that subject and your own. Reflect on how you might tackle a similar problem in your major. 

Ask your students to form groups (or place them in teams yourself) and create a poster presentation, panel discussion, lightning talks or other presentations relevant to a reoccurring theme or topic in your course.  

Groups can collectively develop an individual project idea, or you can assign each group a specific theme or topic.  

Ideally, these projects will translate into presentations and/or poster sessions during next year's Showcase Day. To that end, the Minerva Center for High-Impact Practices has online resources to help your students draft abstracts and create posters.

In lieu of an assignment or project, ask your students to volunteer as support staff on Showcase Day. They'll gain valuable experience managing logistics and help ensure a smooth day of events.

We'll need volunteers for a variety of tasks — from pre-event setup and post-event cleanup to visitor wayfinding and presenter registration.

Note: Specific instructions — including how students can sign up for volunteering and how instructors can track students' volunteering — will be shared closer to the event.