Critical Reflection

Module Learning

At the start of the module, I felt that I had a strong foundation in terms of critical thinking, especially in terms of writing. However my initial impressions of my own level of presentation and speech fluency, and I felt that there was much more to improve in critical thinking than my writing. As the trimester progressed, I learnt that there was still more for me to improve on in my writing, while also improving upon my critical thinking and speech fluency.

During the starting weeks of the trimester, I felt that writing assignments such as the self introductory email and reader response were comfortable, with minimal errors for me to correct. On the other hand, assignments like the 2 minute pitch took much longer to complete than my reader response, due to the amount of retakes and revisions that I had to make, both in my talking points and the recording of the video itself. While my background in daily presentations in polytechnic helped in identifying key points to talk and elaborate upon, I still struggled with fluency, stuttering a few times before landing on a clean take of my pitch. This carried over to the later part of the trimester, though with practice its effects would be toned down while my confidence increased. Issues also popped up regarding my writing capabilities, as I was unfamiliar with research based reports, such as the technical report. This unfamiliarity led me to heavily reference on the resources provided, for the references and writing formats.

I find that the module definitely helped to sharpen my existing skills in writing and presenting, while helping to grow my skills and confidence in presenting. With specific feedback for me to improve upon in my reports and presentation, I believe that these improvements will boost my confidence in writing technical reports and presenting ideas in the rest of my time studying.

Project Learning

I was given the role of team leader in the team’s research project, of which I had to coordinate and ensure that the team does tasks on time, while ensuring that the finished tech report does not compromise on grammar and references. With different team members having different levels of capabilities in different areas, it was up to me to assign different members to different tasks to maximise their capabilities.

During the course of completing this report, the team was very enthusiastic in sharing ideas as to how they want to improve and contribute to the report and its ideas. As a leader, I did my best to help the team agree on how to integrate this multitude of ideas into a cohesive report, with the team being very cooperative on delegating work and pulling our own weight.

I actually found the most value in the Q&A section after our presentation. Some questions posed by peers were really good, and I see these questions as blind-spot identifying, as my inability to answer these questions show a lack of preparation due to oversight. These questions, while they stump me in the moment, in hindsight I think that these questions help to develop my critical thinking, so that in the future I can consider these viewpoints for a more refined end-product.