Sunday, April 17, 2011

Reflections

As this is my last semester, I was thinking of which electives to take. Aim: 0 final examination. My friend recommended me ES2007 which has no final examination but warned me that it is of very heavy workload. Despite the warning, I went on to take this module anyway. OH MY GOD! It turns out that this is the only module that I have to touch on a weekly basis, if not, daily. In terms of workload, this is by far the heaviest among all my other modules and what a way to end off my last semester in NUS!

However, I never regretted taking up this module as I have learned things that I would have never learned from all my other modules. I used to consider myself to have high EQ, but this module just expose the problems that I might have when it comes to handling interpersonal relationship. Also,I was thankful that I picked up many valuable and essential skills I am lacking. Job Interview, Resume Writing, Effective Communication, just to mention a few.  These skills comes in handy right now even when I am just chatting with my friends.

I believe each and everyone in the class make this possible, including our tutor, Ms Lim. I guess we were quite united and that makes learning even easier. Working together on peer teaching, project proposals etc with different groups of people, I thought it was a good move by Ms Lim to bond the class together and practise what we have learned in the first 2 lessons: Effective Communications. Not only are we just people in the same tutorial slot, we were also friends. Having lunch after class for those who were free, gossiping about ***** and ****** saying how compatible they were etc. was just pure fun.
Also, I would like to thank Ms Lim for being such a wonderful tutor. Exuding positive energy throughout the whole class and very engaging to the students, it is of little wonder that no one falls asleep during class. Not only that, this is the 1st time that I know of a tutor that goes all the way out, calling students to give feedbacks, making sure they are on the right track. It makes me feels like a primary school kid and I deeply appreciate these efforts.

As I do not have blog previously and neither do I keep a diary, I am not quite sure how a blog should be written. Anyhow, I believe that writing a blog would be a good idea to help me formulate and organise my thoughts and allow me to learn how to write with respect to the 7Cs.

All in all, although ES2007s is a VERY intensive module, I have never regretted taking up this module. I will recommend it to anyone who would want to learn skills that can be applied to your daily lives(trust me, you will forget others that you learned during your entire school life http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kO8x8eoU3L4)

All the best to everyone!!

Friday, April 8, 2011

Oral Presentation Reflection

Finally, ORAL PRESENTATION IS OVER!! Before I reflect on my oral presentation, I would like to thank Vee Nee, Zabir and Tommy for being such wonderful team mates. Always being there to offer help to one another and always taking the initiatives instead of waiting for things to happen.

Team Plastic Bag FOR THE WIN!!

Preparation

For our preparation, we only discussed about what is to be put inside our individual part inside the slides. Afterwich, we did our own slides and sent it to Tommy who compiled and uploaded it to wiki (Thanks Tommy).  After reading the comments on wiki, we met up to discuss about what is to be changed only on the day before the actual ORAL PRESENTATION. So to be frank, we did not really prepare much together as a team. While at home, I rehearsed my own part quite a few times late at night. On the morning of the actual Oral Presentation, we met up and rehearsed about 2 times. I feel that we only need to polish our own parts and be well versed in the proposal so as to handle Q&A well.

Delivery

In comparison to Peer Teaching, standing in front of the class and presenting etc, I believe that I have improved. I felt more confident in presenting my slides to the class. Also, gathering the feed backs I got from Ms Lim and fellow peers for my Peer Teachings, I tried to maintain eye contacts with the class and spoke more enthusiastically. I am not too sure whether there is any variation in my tone and volume to the class, but as far as I know, I tried not to sound too monotonous.

I felt that I did not do a very good job in my opening as I was quite nervous at the start. My voice was a bit 'shaky' at the start. However, as I continued into my presentation, I became more and more confident so I think that helped in my presentation.

I also tried using the 'Rheoterical Question' technique to catch audience's attention and I felt that helped me focus their attention on me.
During the Q&A session, I believe I have been a bit rude to cut Vee Nee while she was trying to answer Amanda's question. As time was running short, I told the class that we only have time for the 1 question as soon as Vee Nee answered Amanda's question, not allowing any time for Amanda to reply. I felt that reflected bad on me.

Use of Slides

I felt that the content in my slides were easy to follow and quite straight forward. I put statistics, sounds and analogy in my slides to make audience focus their attention on me, understand my point and the ineffectiveness of BYOBD better. However, I felt that Tommy clicking my slides and me giving the presentation could be coordinated better. I believe it would be better if I put in more effort in preparation with Tommy.