Critical Reflection

 In the beginning, when I walked into this module class, I had a mindset where I thought "how is it going to be different from the effective communication class I had in polytechnic and what more am I even going to learn from this class". However, the first week of class amazed me on the structure of the subjects and the classmates I had. The first goal I had was to expand my vocabulary and write professionally. I know I am a sociable person, but I am not able to put them in good sentence form when writing. Throughout this module, the rephrasing of the paragraphs to avoid plagiarism and commenting on other's writings helped me. I got to learn new methods of structuring my sentences and new words from others at the same time. Critiquing my classmate's writings made me realize the same mistakes I have been doing in my blog writings or report. As I started to critique others more, I was able to spot out my own mistakes in my writing and develop them. Thus, I believe that I have achieved this objective.

Another goal I set for myself was to improve my presentation skills. Presenting in front of others has been my biggest fear and anxiety issue since secondary school. I have broken down crying for a few of my previous presentations because of the overwhelmed feeling of insecurity. However, the more I presented over the years, my confidence level did increase, but I was lacking in connecting with the audience and being more vocal. Since I was eager to share the project with others, I believed I could present my slides well. However, I am a bit disappointed in myself even though I do see an improvement within me. I stuttered a lot and blanked out as I depend a lot on my script, which messed up the message I wanted to deliver to the audience. So, I was not able to meet the expectations I had set for myself. I choose to improve myself more in the future by practice presenting in front of others without a script and, also avoid memorizing the content without understanding it.

The research project was fun in the beginning stage, but as days went by, it was draining and troublesome. I was excited that I had the upper hand of choosing my group mates and make more friends. The timetable was not intense in the beginning, and we were still getting to know each other, so we worked well as a team. I started feeling there was more work burden on me when the communication got problematic between one of the teammates. As a team, it became two vs one game which made the assigned tasks fall apart. I was losing patience to snap at my teammate for not putting enough effort as the others, but I knew talking it out in a calm manner would solve problems smoothly. Hence, we did a few meetings outside of class, such as going out to lunch together and studying together somedays. This helped us to bond together and have a heart to heart conversation on how to improve the team situation we had now. There were a lot of ups and downs, but at the end of the day, we were able to juggle the problems when we worked as a team. I am proud of how far we have reached as a team even through the bad days. 

In conclusion, I have gained new pieces of knowledge from this Effective Communication module. I have learned to write a letter, article summary, and reports professionally in the proper format. Most of the skills I have learned from this module have been beneficial, and I have used them in several other module writings and letters. I am thankful for Professor Bard's guidance, teaching and advises that help me through difficult situations. I am also grateful for the support from my classmates.