Final Reflection on ES2007S. My class rocks! =) (edited)

As I look back on my personal growth in this module, I feel that this module was fun, challenging, and extremely meaningful. This is because I’ve learnt what the principles underlying effective communication (e.g. the 7Cs) are. Acquiring such head knowledge alone is not sufficient in improving one’s communication skills however. Hence, I believe that the many opportunities provided for me to practice communication skills and the extensive feedback received from everyone, have helped me to improve my interpersonal communication ability.  This is basically the main thing that I value from this course. With respect to the 7Cs, I think that this course has impressed upon me the idea that concreteness and clarity is a critical component of effective communication. Obviously, the remanding 5Cs are also important, but I kind of understood that before I took ES2007S.

Another thing which I value is the oral presentation. Although it is part of the assignments given, and hence is technically covered in my previous paragraph, the presentation meant a lot to me, therefore I feel that it deserves special mention. I’m actually quite afraid of giving presentations, but I understand that they’ll play an indispensable role in my professional career. Hence, I do actually look forward to giving presentations (despite my fear) as I’m sure that through practice, my presentation skills will improve until I would one day, be able to stand confidently before a crowd with little or no nervousness.  I fully believe that ES2007S, through its lessons on giving presentations, has extremely benefited me as I’ve learnt how to be a better speaker through the use of effective non-verbal signals, eye contact and tone and volume control. Although I’m sure that I can still improve in these areas, I’m mentioning them in my blog post as I think I have made discernable improvements in these areas.

Along the same lines as Jac and Michelle however, I do feel a bit sad/worried about my lower than expected results for some of my assignments. Although I do realize that grades aren’t everything, well, I need them in order to qualify for graduate school admission (something which I currently don’t qualify for  ><).

My reflection on my Oral Presentation

In my opinion, I would rate my performance during my group’s oral presentation last Thursday (7/4/11), as a 7 upon 10. This scale is constructed with 5 being the quality of the typical oral presentation which I tend to give (based on my memories of presentations given during previous modules). A rating of 1 would be me giving an absolutely horrible presentation while 10 would be basically a perfect and mind-blowing presentation. Hence, I would say that I think I did above average for my oral presentation and am, in general, happy with my performance =). However, I do believe that there is still much room for improvement. An elaboration on this would be in the section titled “Weaknesses and Future Improvements”

Strengths

Since I’ve had the luxury of multiple rehearsals, I believed that I was well prepared for my presentation. This resulted in me feeling that one of the main strengths of my presentation was that my verbal messages were presented quite fluently. Also, I felt that my non-verbal messages, which I believed were communicated primarily via my hand gestures, effectively complemented my verbal messages and I am quite pleased with this. Lastly, I felt that I projected my voice effectively throughout my presentation and this is really the main cause of my satisfaction with my presentation. This is because I’ve received feedback on two occasions, one from Brad during my peer teaching lesson, and the other from my lecturer in a Freshman Seminar module which I took in year one, that the volume of my voice was not loud enough when I was speaking. I’m thus glad that I’ve managed to speak at an appropriate volume. I liked my slides as well, as I felt that its simple layout was easy on the eyes and yet, it still managed to be visually attractive. The credit for this achievement goes to Michael who designed my slides for me =). Having a computer engineer in my team rocks, as you can see haha.

Weaknesses and Future Improvements

Although I spoke fluently in general, the perfectionist in me was not happy that there were a few times when I stumbled over my words and when I had to pause longer than I should to recall my points. Thankfully though such moments were rare (I think). If it was not, please let me know so that I can improve in this area =). Thus, I felt it did not seriously compromise the effectiveness of my presentation. I am persuaded that the greatest weakness of my presentation was that my slides were not always linked to my spoken words in a coherent and clear manner. As such, the audience may have felt confused during certain parts of my presentation. This could have caused them to be unsure of whether their attention should be on my slides or on me in order for them to fully grasp the message that I was trying to put across. This is something which I think Brad has highlighted after my group’s presentation was done. As such, I would really like to improve in this area. One possible way to do so would be for me to scrutinize my slides extremely closely to check for the existence of a clear and logical link between my slides and my speech. Also, I could present in front of different groups of people before the actual presentation date, so that I can get feedback on the coherency and clarity of my slides with respect to my speech.

Comments and constructive criticism are most welcome! =)