Connecting students to knowledge
and its application
Southern Utah University
Lynn White, Ph.D.
Brain and Behavior
Seek, Answer, Relate, Apply (SARA)
To help you develop your information literacy skills, develop your curiosity in the field of brain and behavior, and use what you have learned in class, you will complete a SARA project. You will research a question, prepare a well-designed 5-8 minute slide presentation, record the presentation and share it with your classmates. You will also create three multiple-choice questions on your presentation. Complete details are below.
Each student needs to watch 15 SARAs and take their associated quiz. If you watch and take more than this, I will count your best 15.
THE DETAILS
1. Choose a question to answer
There are three places you can go to explore topics and choose a question:
Go to the Neuroscience in Society webpage maintained by BrainFacts.org. Click on the masks (2-10) to learn what the most popular neuroscience topics were for 2020. Alternatively, Explore articles on the following websites: NeuroscienceNews.com, ScienceDaily.com (the neuroscience page), and NeuroscienceInTheNews. Once you have a question, go to the homepage in Canvas. There is a link there to a google sheet where you will a. confirm that no one else beat you to it and b. enter in your question (assuming it's not been taken). Then, go to the Canvas assignment called "the SARA question I chose" and tell me what it is. As long as no one else proposed the same question before you and the question is appropriate for the course, I will go ahead and approve it.
2. Answer the question
To answer your question, you will need to find and use a minimum of three articles, and at least two must be peer-reviewed. To find peer-reviewed sources, log onto the SUU library website. Find the red box that looks like the one shown below. Enter your keywords and use Boolean Operators (AND, OR) between them as needed. If you require a refresher on using Boolean Operators, check out the short video on this page. Note: in the EBSCO search box, be sure to click on "scholarly/peer-reviewed articles". If you are not sure if an article is peer-reviewed, email me the full citation and I will let you know. Describe and summarize the evidence from your sources to answer your SARA.
FINDING PEER-REVIEWED ARTICLES
Go to SUU's library website and use Ebsco host to search for articles. Be sure to select the option for "scholarly-peer reviewed". If you find a source somewhere else, you must verify that it is peer-reviewed. The librarians will help you if you are not sure how to do this, or see me.
3. Relate what you learned to one or more specific facts/findings/theories in the class. For example, does the info you found contradict a fact/finding/theory? Does the information you found provide an example or application of a fact/finding/theory? Talk about this on a slide with the title "Time to Relate"
4. Apply what you learned. Using a slide with the title "Time to Apply", talk about how you can use the information you found to better your life and/or others. Be specific and insightful. Saying only "this will make people healthier" is not adequate.
5. Put together a well-designed slideshow to share your SARA with your classmates. Use vivid colors, graphics and/or photos, simple fonts (e.g. calibri, arial), and minimal text on a slide (use short but descriptive bullet points and not full sentences). If you have more than 3 bullet points on a slide, have them appear one at a time. You can create your slide show using PowerPoint, Canva, or google slides. To record a video of your presentation, I suggest ScreenCast-omatic. This is a free app for recording your screen. Once your recording is made - verify that the sound and video both work! Then, you will upload it to a shared Google folder hyperlinked on the Canvas homepage. Make sure you save your recording using your name and short title of the presentation (e.g. Lynn W Pets and Wellbeing.mp4). IMPORTANT: If you have any technical issues, call SUU Canvas: 435-865-8555 or SUU IT: 435-865-8200
6. Create 3 multiple-choice questions. Each question needs to have 4 options (a-d). The question should be easy to answer if someone watched your SARA presentation, however, the answer should not be directly on one of your slides. Finally, your questions need to be about important and meaningful material discussed in your presentation. Please read and re-read your questions to make sure they are clear and well-phrased. Do not include your questions in your video. You will submit your questions in Canvas. Be sure to tell me the correct answer for each question!
7. Submit your video and 3 questions by the due date. You will need to share your video with me and submit the three multiple-choice questions on your presentation. Look for the assignment called "SARA quiz questions x 3". Make certain you have clearly indicated what the correct answer is to each of your three questions.
REFERENCE YOUR SOURCES
You need to tell people where you got your information from. If everything on a given slide comes from the same article, then you can include a brief citation for the article in the corner of the slide (e.g. Smith & Jones, 2020). If the information on a slide comes from several articles, then include a brief citation beside each bit of information. You should make the font size for the brief citation smaller than the main text as this should not be the focus of your presentation. The last slide of your presentation will be your APA-formatted reference list. Put the articles in alphabetical order and remove any hyperlinks. Make sure you know how to cite and create a reference list in APA format and style.
One common error people make is with how they write DOIs. Specifically, they include the SUU library info in the DOI address. This is not correct because anyone who is outside of the SUU community will not be able to access the link. See the incorrect and correct ways to write DOIs below. Make sure to get them correct on your SARA slide :)
INCORRECT: https://doi-org.proxy.li.suu.edu:2443/10.1007/s00213-021-05994-6
CORRECT: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00213-021-05994-6
NOT SURE HOW TO REFERENCE?
Click on the tab "Help Referencing APA Style" - located below. You can also use the Scribbr app.
NOT SURE WHAT YOUR POWERPOINT SHOULD LOOK LIKE?
Watch the example of a SARA presentation below. IMPORTANT: this presentation was made for my health psych and stress & pain classes. Yours will be different in that your focus will be on the biological aspects of whichever behavior you chose to answer a question about.
GRADING RUBRICS
If you want to do well on this project, you will need to review the grading rubrics below.