Chemistry of Molecular Systems Group Poster Presentation

The poster presentation format was chosen because the course didn’t include any such presentation, apart from in an optional year 3 module, before the heavily weighted BSc project poster presentation. To keep students engaged in other groups’ presentations, a ‘question roulette’ is used. This involves each group being allocated another group to which they must ask a question, with the allocated group being announced by staff just before the relevant presentation. This was found to work well, with students not only asking the one required question, but having more than enough questions to fill the allocated Q&A time even without the staff questions. There was no replacement of this for those who missed the presentation. 

This assessment focuses on students working with unfamiliar molecules and applying concepts they have learnt throughout the course to unfamiliar molecules. As well as this, it also develops and assesses students’ literature searching skills, which is evident in the impressive selection of molecules from students, and their understanding of the literature is shown by their presentation, in areas such as a molecular system’s mechanism of action or evidence it exists. 

Two-thirds of the final grade came from staff grading the presentation and viva, and one-third came from a peer-assessment mark. In 2021-22, final marks were released to students 3 weeks after the presentation day. The first time this assessment ran, the final mark had an additional peer-assessment component, as students were also asked to grade all the presentations that they watched. However, this was abandoned as not only did it create extra work chasing students, but it also diluted the quality of the marking, as students tended to just mark their friends highly instead of basing grades on the quality of the presentation. This extra peer assessment had been trialled to encourage students to remain engaged in watching their peers’ presentations, but this has been replaced by the ‘question roulette’ initiative.