The classes will be organized into 4 teams of no more than 6 students each to collaborate together on a semester-long oral and written project. The oral presentation for this project will be completed at the end of the semester during the final meeting or meetings of the semester. For the Wednesday night class, that is Wednesday, April 23. For the Monday-Wednesday classes, it is Wednesday, April 23 and Monday, April 28.  Note: it is essential that all students be in class both of these days for all four team presentations. Failure to be present without instructor permission may result in a zero for your team presentation grade.

The deadline for all teams to submit their slide presentations is April 23. Team papers are due no later than midnight May 2.  All teams will be expected to work together to complete the oral and written aspects of the project. Teams will also be expected to complete several team assignments during the semester that will generally relate to helping teams complete their semester-long project. Consult these team assignment pages for specific details:

Team Project Details

  • Each team will choose a local non-profit organization (not a national NPO like Red Cross, United Way) whose work is as closely aligned with team members’ attitudes and beliefs about public service as possible. The website Great Nonprofits has a very comprehensive list of local non-profits in Syracuse which can be filtered by issue/cause. It would be worth checking out while making an organization decision.
  • Each team will research their respective organization’s history, mission, programs, and activities in order to better understand the organization. Teams will also develop a project for this organization that aids in additional revenue, creates a new program that aligns with organizational goals, or comes up with an improved or enhanced version of an existing program.
  • Each team will submit an (approximate) 4500-5000 word paper formatted in APA style (double-spaced, 1-inch margins all around, 12 point Times New Roman font) that covers all aspects of the team activity, complete with citations of sources used in completing the presentation and report.
  • Each team will create and present a 30-minute multimedia presentation based on the written paper’s content to inform and enlighten the class about this organization as well as each team’s proposed organizational project. (Note: the order in which teams complete the presentation and paper is up to each team, as long as they are completed by their respective deadlines.)
  • While cited sources will not be required for the presentation, you MUST include a minimum of 10 sources for the written paper. A portion of these sources must include books or peer-reviewed journals.
  • The team presentation is worth 100 points, and the written paper is worth 150 points.

Notes on the Team Project

  • This project represents a major portion of your grade in this class, so it will require a major effort on every student’s part. While team members are typically graded identically for all team assignments, each team member will complete an evaluation form after the completion of each team activity. You will rate your fellow team members on various aspects of their contribution to the team effort.  I will take these evaluations into consideration when I assign project grades for each team member.
  • The team project will include several team assignments, with each assignment designed to be a “building block” for teams to complete various aspects of the activity. These assignments will typically occur every 2-3 weeks.
  • The goal of this project is to get your team to work together in different ways with different goals and outcomes. It is a challenge to work over a long period of time on a single project with a group of people that you must depend upon for their contributions and collaborations.  Yet it is that challenge that will aid you and your team in skills to manage time lines, availability of team members, key milestone dates, etc.
  • There will be time built in nearly every week for teams to meet (usually with me for a brief face-to-face progress report). However, it will be crucial for teams to also determine when and how to meet outside of class. Virtual meetings will probably be a reality for many teams but try to work out times when you can all meet face-to-face.  It is likely that you will make more and better progress in those settings.

Rubrics for This Project

I will evaluate your oral presentation and your written paper based on these rubrics:

Oral (each team member will be  evaluated individually on these criteria):

  • Quality of content (30 points) – how appropriate is the content to the topic?
  • Engagement with audience (20 points) – Does your presentation make an impression?
  • Speaking skills (25 points) – how good of a speaker are you? How do you use your voice to communicate?
  • Presentation quality (15 points) – What’s your presentation like? Do your slides support your speech?
  • Language skills (10 points) – Do you use words in a creative and impactful way?

Written (the team as a whole will be evaluated on these criteria):

  • Writing Quality (40 points)– What is the writing like? Do the sentences make interesting statements or ask pertinent questions? Do the sentences connect ideas together to form paragraphs that address a particular situation or concept? Do the paragraphs in the work lead the reader to some kind of outcome or conclusion? Also, are there spelling errors and/or punctuation problems? Are sentences structured correctly from a grammatical point of view?
  • Organization (25 points) – Is the work organized in a meaningful way that aids the reader in being able to follow along with what is written? Do paragraphs follow each other in a logical order? Are the structure elements arranged in a logical or meaningful order?
  • Content (25 points) – Does the work address the topic? Are the various points of the topic represented in the paper with adequate examples?
  • References/sources  (10 points) – Do the sources appear to be cited correctly in the References section? Are the sources properly cited in-text?