Critical Reflection

 As someone who has experienced their fair share of critical thinking and effective communication classes and seminars from my school life, I did not have high expectations entering into this module and was just expecting another run-of-the-mill experience of a communication module. However, looking back at my experiences from the semester, this has been the most hands on and engaging module I have ever had. At the start of the semester, I had hoped to achieve being able to work more effectively in team settings, offering better assistance to my team mates when required and also being able to produce reports that are of a higher quality.

Through the use of several critical thinking models, such as the 6 steps for effective critical thinking, as theorised by Dr Rafiq Elmansy, as well as the Paul-Elder critical thinking framework, I have been able to upgrade my train of thought and that has allowed me to better play a role as a team member in all my projects throughout the semester. Whenever I am part of a discussion, I will immediately apply the intellectual standards discussed in class towards whatever point I am trying to raise. I am then able to better process whether what I am trying to say is relevant to the discussion at hand in terms of the seven C’s of communication. This has allowed me to better convey my thoughts and become an effective team player during the discussions and projects we had.

Similarly, the report writing and presentation skills thought during class has also been beneficial to me personally. Through the breakdown of what a design proposal should include, I have been able to use the guiding questions and ideal outcomes to draft reports that are precise yet informative. I was also able to use the steps for an effective presentation lesson, such as knowing your audience, as a way to deliver a presentation to the class which I personally felt was my best presentation yet. The feedback given to me by Professor Brad, as well as my classmates, were also effective and highlighted the areas which I could improve in and will definitely use to better improve myself in future presentations.

Through the research project, I was able to focus on applying the presentation skills learnt during the module. In my previous experiences, there were moments where the slides used were filled with what I had wanted to say, rather than what the audience should pick up from my presentation. I had also learned that a presentation should be planned out such that the contents conveyed by the team members are cohesive and flows well.

As a presenter for my group, I was also given the opportunity to practice for the final presentation on a weekly basis in sharing with the class the progress that we have achieved through our meetings outside of class. For my team mates, however, they had shared during our meetings that they were not as confident in presenting to a larger group. It was interesting to me that despite the fact that they were weaker in their presentation skills, they were able to compensate for that in their final report writing and researching regarding our topic. Our individual strengths, however, allowed us to finish strong as we constantly tried to help each other in the aspects we did not perform as well in. This was a good experience for me as this was a team that was assigned, and were not a group of people who I would have chosen based on my personality. It was also humbling to see that while we may not be fully capable as individuals, working as part of a team allowed us to compensate by allowing everyone to utilise their skills while simultaneously strengthening our weaknesses.

Overall, I have definitely enjoyed myself during this module while also learning invaluable skills that I will definitely use in the future. To my teammates and those who I have had the opportunity of working with, I thank you for the experiences we have shared together and I wish you all the best in your future endeavours. To Professor Brad, thank you for facilitating such a positive learning environment. I have really enjoyed this class and was actually excited to come to class. I also very much appreciate the valuable feedbacks you have provided throughout this semester and I will definitely remember them forever.