Critical Reflection

Over the past 13 weeks, I have discovered more about myself. Looking back at the goals I set for myself at the start of this module, I believe that I have met most of my goals throughout this module. 

Module Learning

One factor behind most of my weaknesses in communication that I identified was my introverted nature. This module helped me know more about my classmates so that I would not feel overly nervous when I speak. My first goal was to become more outspoken. Professor Blackstone patiently helped me overcome this weakness of being too soft-spoken throughout these 13 weeks by getting me to the class and by initiating small talk. I realized that over the past few months, I felt comfortable initiating conversations and I felt less shy when I talk to people around me. I am thankful for the opportunities Professor Blackstone gave me to walk out of my comfort zone. 

Besides overcoming my weaknesses in communication, I have also learned more about communication and critical thinking. To apply critical thinking, I would often refer back to the Paul-Elder framework. Critical thinking addresses my second goal of being clearer and more precise when I communicate with people. This skill enhances my ability to communicate with clarity by allowing my thoughts and answers to be well thought through and to interpret information more accurately. It improved my skill of reasoning as well such that I was more capable of coming up with a solution that can be backed by reasoning.  Critical thinking is an important process, and I want to be able to apply this skill daily so that I can improve my communication outside of this module.

One lesson that left an impact on me was the 7 Cs of communication. I thought of the 7 Cs as the ideal guidelines of communication that I should work towards. Out of the 7 Cs, the hardest Cs for me to follow were to be coherent and clear. After I had familiarised myself with the Paul-Elder framework, I found that my reasoning has improved and that I was able to formulate a coherent response. However, I noticed that I still struggle to speak whatever I have formulated. This would be something I have to overcome by myself after this module. In the future, I want to apply the 7 Cs to my verbal and written skills to improve the overall quality of communication.  

Project Learning

I personally thought that I have learned a lot through my research project. My biggest takeaway from the project was teamwork. Different people have different ways of thinking and working, and it was hard to work with people sometimes. What I have done in the past was compromising and keeping my opinions to myself but I have learned that compromising is not always good. In this particular research project, I started to express my opinions and ideas to my teammates and I felt thankful to my teammates for taking in my suggestions. 

With reference to my goals, I had always seen myself as a weak presenter. I had a major problem with using filler words and little engagement with the audience during my presentation. Comparing my mock presentation and formal presentation, I noticed that fewer filler words were used in the latter. The difference in performance can be credited to how familiar I was with what I was presenting. With more research and familiarity with my work, I was more confident in my speech. I was, therefore, able to formulate my thoughts with more clarity with more practice. 

My nervousness during the presentation might have been attributed to my lack of engagement with the audience. It was uncomfortable for me to initiate eye contact with the audience due to my awkward stance throughout the presentation. One reason why I had fewer interactions with my audience was that I needed a prompt to formulate a proper sentence. To address these problems, I want to speak more to a crowd and overcome my weaknesses in presentation. 

In conclusion, I have areas that still need improvement and I will work towards overcoming them using what I have learned from this module.