Critical reflection

 Module Learning

As I find myself approaching the end of this module, I start to reflect back on the journey I have had throughout this module. At the start of it, we were tasked to set personal goals which we hope to achieve by the end of the trimester. I set a goal for myself which to improve and grow confidence in my writing. However, apart from just writing, I also find myself improving in other aspects as well.

A lot of writing was involved in this module, which really challenged me.  As the written assignments got more complex each week, the Summary Reader Response assignment was where I started to pay more attention to my writing. During my earlier drafts, I realized how careless and how much I was lacking in my writing. I was leaving grammatical and spelling errors left and right for my draft writings. I also came to learn that I was also leaving sentence fragments and comma splices in my writing. Fortunately, under the teachings of Prof Brad, I was able to cut down and correct my writing habits.

From day 1, we were already pushed to test our communication skills as most of the assignments given for the class were either in pairs or groups. Discussions were necessary to ensure the pair or group was on the same page and from there we were able to form a team structure to complete the assigned tasks. The 7 C's of communication was a tool that I found very useful. I learned to be more straightforward, clear, and concise in discussions, which helped me bring my points across more efficiently. To further improve my communication and critical thinking, I tried to take more initiative in activities. By taking lead, I am able to test myself on the way I speak and present to my groupmates and class and get constructive feedback to further improve myself.

The module may have come to an end, but the learning will not stop here. As these skills will come in very handy in the future when I venture out to the working world, I hope to continue to improve my writing, communication, and presentation skills whenever I can. 

Project Learning

The technical report and presentation were definitely a project to remember. The project really demanded us to take the time to discuss and communicate our ideas as we were all writing one report together. There were moments when our report had repeating pointers or even pointers that were going in different directions due to the lack of communication. Fortunately, we were able to catch on and align our ideas eventually. This project really gave us the opportunity to test our communications skills which we picked up in class by applying the Paul Elders framework and the 7 C's of communication to our writing and discussions. 

The biggest takeaway that really stood out for me during this project was that I also found my presentation skills improving as well. I was always able to project my voice and did not have much of an issue with presenting in front of a class. My weakness in presenting, however, was my delivery of content. I learned that I can be quite reliant on scripts to guide myself along the presentations and have a habit of subconsciously using filler words such as "uh" and "so".  I started to grasp the concept that the more I practice and understand the topic, the more control I would have over presenting it. As I continued to practice nearing the day of the presentation, I find myself slowly moving away from scripts and having more confidence in presenting my content. Along the way, I was also able to pick up good habits from my peers such as good hand gestures and postures when presenting. 

Aside from the verbal presentation, I also learned how the slides can also set the tone of the presentation. It is important not to chunk a huge load of info on the screen as that would defeat the purpose of presenting and may take the attention away from the presenter. Instead, I learned to only include key points of the topic for the presenter to elaborate and navigate through the presentation. 

I am grateful and lucky to have such enthusiastic and cooperative teammates, especially at the fact that we find time to rehearse and exchange ideas to further improve our project whenever we can. All in all, I really enjoyed myself and learned a lot from this module with the help of everyone from their feedback. I will continue to learn and grow to not let this journey go to waste. Lastly, to end the reflection, I would like to say thank you to Prof Brad and my fellow classmates for all their hard work and for making this journey a fruitful one.