Week 13: Additional Post (Bonus)

    I believe that preparation is key when you want to achieve a solid presentation. A presenter can feel confident when presenting because of the fact that he or she is well prepared. In this post, I'm going to give you a walk through on the learning process that my team and I went through while preparing for the presentation for our project.

    Firstly, my team and I learned how critical it was to ensure that our content for our presentation to be concise and well organized. This was important because we do not want to have wordy slides that could cause our audience to doze off or get bored. We wanted their utmost attention. It was also important to have well organized slides so that our audience could follow the flow of  our presentation.

    Secondly, I believe that in a presentation, verbal and non-verbal communication are both being constantly observed by the audience. One should never focus solely on one of the aspects and ignore the other. While practicing on our verbal communication, my team and I learned how we could make use of non-verbal cues to support what we want to say during the presentation. For example, the presenter could raise his pointing finger or both his pointing and middle finger to further support his statement of ''one'' or ''two''. In my opinion, this allows the audience to have better visual aid on the presenter statement. We practiced our verbal and non-verbal communication by presenting and giving constructive feedback to one another.

    Lastly, my team and I learned how teamwork is vital in order for us to complete every aspect of the presentation. The task given to us could not be completed by one person alone. Furthermore, given the limited time that my team and I had in our course, we needed all the help that we could get from each other. There were several conflicts and issues that we faced while going through our presentation slides as well as during our presentation practice. However, we learned to cooperate, managed conflicts better and actively listen to one another.

    In summary, every aspect of the preparation was important in order for my team and I to confidently present our project on the actual day. For this project, I have experienced several issues that requires every communication skills that we had went through in this course from week 1 till week 13. These experiences have made me realized how important these lessons were since there will be more projects introduced in the following years to come.

Week 13: Critical Reflection on Learning in the Course

https://www.resumetarget.com/blog/what-objective-statements-really-mean-and-why-they-dont-work/

    For those who have read my second blog post (officially my first) , you might remember the two objectives I have set to achieve by the end of the COM 150 course. In case you forgot, and in favor of those new readers of mine, allow me to reintroduce the objectives once more. The two objectives are:

1) Communicate better by learning when to stop talking and allow others the opportunity to speak instead.

2) Use current skills effectively at a work place. For example, communicating in a project group where communication is key.

    Let's begin with the first objectives that I had set. I believe that I am able to communicate better as compared to when I first attended the course. Presently, I pay more attention to the non verbal cues of the person I'm talking to. This allows me to detect when the other person is uninterested in the topic of our conversation. For example, when a person starts to look away from me, he may no longer be interested in the subject. However, I must consider the communication barrier that could be present. The person might not be able to maintain eye contact with me, as he might be shy. By actively reading and deducing the body language of others, it allows me to have a better sense and judgement of when to stop talking and allow others to speak instead. By gaining such ability, I can conclude that I have completed the first objective and can move on to the next one.

    Let's continue to the second and last objective that I had set. I began by focusing on the leadership skills that I already possessed and how I can effectively use it in a project group. In the process of learning, I was made aware of the different types of leadership styles available. I started to match the leadership methods that I normally use to the different styles available. This brings me to a realization that mine matched closely with the collaborative style. By knowing the style that I used, it allows me to understand how my style can be bad or good depending on the situation. With that in mind, I explored and learned other leadership style as well. By knowing various styles, I can identify and use the best suited ones that works well in any types of project group.

    To sum up, I have achieved every objectives that I had set. However, I believe there is still room for improvement. I will continuously seek and gain knowledge while enhancing my current skillsets by practicing during conversations on  a daily basis. Hopefully, it will help to further enhance my interpersonal and work communication skills.