Course format & grading
Advanced graduate lecture-seminar with a semester-long research project. Nine seminar meetings provide 23 paper-lead slots; every student leads exactly once. There are no exams and no problem sets.
Regular week · 110 minutes
| 10:10-10:35 | Instructor mini-lecture: concepts, methods, cross-paper connections |
|---|---|
| 10:35-11:00 | Paper 1 - presentation, critique, discussion |
| 11:00-11:10 | Break |
| 11:10-11:35 | Paper 2 - presentation, critique, discussion |
| 11:35-12:00 | Paper 3 - presentation, critique, discussion |
Guest-speaker weeks
| 10:10-10:35 | Paper 1 - presentation, critique, discussion |
|---|---|
| 10:35-11:00 | Paper 2 - presentation, critique, discussion |
| 11:00-11:10 | Break |
| 11:10-12:00 | Guest lecture + Q&A |
Student-Led Paper Presentation · the 25-minute block
12 min problem, context, mechanism, and the minimum results needed to understand the paper
8 min critical analysis of claims, baselines, assumptions, methodology, and missing evidence
5 min facilitated discussion around two or three precise questions
Presenters read the full paper, appendices, and artifact documentation. Everyone else reads the abstract, introduction, core method, principal results, and limitations of all assigned papers, and arrives with at least one discussion question. No weekly summary reports.
Grading
| Component | Weight | Visual proportion |
|---|---|---|
| Paper presentation & discussion leadership | 15% | |
| Engagement & participation | 10% | |
| Project P0 - Proposal | 5% | |
| Project check-ins P1-P5 (completion-based) | 10% | |
| Midterm presentation | 10% | |
| Final poster | 10% | |
| Final paper & artifact | 40% |
Grades reflect research judgment, technical execution, evidence quality, communication, and reproducibility - not whether a project happens to beat the state of the art. A rigorous negative result can earn full credit.
Evidence-centered discussion
Every paper discussion returns to six questions:
- What is the paper's exact central claim?
- Which experiment most directly supports that claim?
- What hidden assumption is most likely to break?
- Is the baseline fair and budget-matched?
- Which conclusion extends beyond the presented evidence?
- What single additional experiment would most change confidence in the result?