Critical Reflection

One of the goals that I have set for myself in the beginning to hopefully be able to achieve after the completion of this module, was to be able to be more comfortable in sharing my ideas and expressing myself, and to internally be more confident in my thoughts. During the course of this module, it has pushed me to be able to professionally communicate with different people that I may not necessarily be comfortable with. The constant change in group setting has allowed me to adapt quicker and communicate effectively to get the required work done. Besides this, there were many instances where we were given opportunities to speak in front of a small group, and feedback was given. This gave me the opportunity to improve my verbal and non-verbal communication skills, like projection and the appropriate use of gestures. The exchange of feedback was also necessary in allowing me to realise some of the aspects of which I can improve further, like my tone and use of space. One skill that I have learnt through this was to be able to quickly pull-out key ideas from reading a lengthy paragraph and explain a summarized version such that my audience would understand in a short period of time. This skill will ultimately be very useful when working in the corporate world. Through this module, it was also effective in a sense that it went back and touched on the basics of sentence structures and language errors. This is essential as it gives us a chance to refresh what we didn’t touch on for years. Though language is something that is hard to correct, through the process of peer reviewing we were able to try identifying more of these language errors and correct them, which is a step towards improving language.

In the project assignment, where I had to work in a group to modify a product of interest and in the process, produce a technical report as well as present and pitch out design idea. Through this, I believe that these tasks gave me the chance to demonstrate what I had learnt during the module, as we had to be able to structure and write a summary, as well as reference the report using proper citations in the technical report. Using the Paul-Elder Critical Thinking Framework, I able to focus my thoughts to comprehend and analyze my research topic in greater detail. I think that another big takeaway from this is that we were exposed to reference using the APA citation format, where we were required to learn how to cite a source professionally. This would be useful in future projects where referencing is needed as well. Since out product that we decided on was already being implemented quite widely, we initially felt the need to have more design implementations. We ultimately decided on one modification and weighed the benefits it brings and how we could mitigate the disadvantages that come with our implementations. As we discussed and shared on our opinions, the communication within the group naturally also improved, and we were able to work together to complete our tasks under the direction of our leader. We eventually had to pitch our idea through giving a presentation, which was an aspect in which I was least confident in. Even though I felt that my given presentation could be overall improved through further preparation, I was still glad that I was able to effectively work in a team and communicate well to voice my opinions. Overall, I feel that through this module, it has allowed me to take small steps in improving my communication and presenting skills, and I hope to be able to further improve and put my knowledge into practice.