Critical Reflection

At the start of this course, I set myself 2 goals to achieve or work towards. Now that the course has its last lesson ended 2 days ago, I believe that I have achieved one of them, and am still working towards the other. 

The first goal was to overcome my weakness of speaking in front of a large audience. This fear or struggle i faced was due to the thoughts of getting judged or laughed at by them. This feeling was also amplified due to my nature of being an introvert where I tend to overthink and imagine the worst. In this module, there were multiple opportunities for myself to practice speaking to an audience, this could be in the form of a small group of 5 or half the class. I am very grateful for this structure of the classes as these opportunities allowed me to mentally prepare myself with the contents and also learnt how to give a proper presentation with the large amounts of feedback from the audience and professor after each presentation. With a small presentations occurring every few weeks, I managed to gain confidence and learnt the proper way one should present in front of an audience. 

The other goal I set myself was to become more proficient in writing reports and letters. The issues I had with them were that I did not know the structure and layout required for them as well as putting them into words and in the formal format. With this module, each written assignment came with a few examples as well as a rubrics and requirements for the writings. These allowed me to analyse the samples as well as follow the guidelines provided in order to have a sense of how my writing should be. Furthermore, with some of the assignments being paired or group work, I could also look at my teammates writings to learn on how they phrase or structure their contents. The feedback from my writings have also allowed me to learn and understand my mistakes. 

While my writing skills and communication skills were enhanced during this module, they are still far from what I have expected. My writing skills can be further improved with more writings opportunities and looking up more examples that I could learn from. For the communication skills, there will always be chances to speak in front of an audience when in university. It could be in the form of a small group discussion or at an actual presentation to the class and professors. These chances are when I should take the time to practice my communication skills learnt from this module. I may know the proper way of communicating but it takes time to display and use them during the live presentation and this requires practice. 

For my research project, I learnt that when I came across an idea or suggestion, I would share it with the group members while becoming fixated that my idea was the most optimal or a better alternative compared to the current idea or my teammate's suggestion. This led to some strong debates between myself and others which could have been resolved early if I was not complacent. As the project work continued, I self reflected and started to give suggestions and ideas but was not enforcing them to be taken. I also often asked my teammates at times on their opinions on the current topic and whether they should be slightly altered or changed completely. This change in mindset allowed myself to work better with my teammates as ideas could be brainstormed freely and more perspectives to be taken into account when deciding on an option. 

As for the project presentation, I found out that I could speak my part of the presentation in my head very well and fluently but when it was suppose to be live and out loud, it was a totally different situation. Thankfully, this realisation was found out early through a group rehearsal where I was stuttering and my flow of thought was all of the place. I was advised to understand the my part better and very well such that the knowledge would just flow out when my presentation part came. This turned out true as when my presentation turn came, I was able to freely speak on my topic with little pauses and stuttering. 

Overall, I am very grateful for my teammates that I have worked with throughout the module, not only my project members. I am also very thankful for Professor Brad as he made this module very enjoyable and effective. I believe that my writing and communication skills have been enhanced thanks to him and I look forward to further using what he has taught me in the future.