Final Reflection on Learning

            The particular aspect of the module that I cherish the most was the lesson on oral presentation. I understand that presentations contribute heavily to career growth. I was really eager to try out the various techniques taught during the lesson on oral presentation. Being a good orator in my regional language I thought oral presentation would be an easy task. But that was not the case, though certain skillsets are common to all presentations.

            I did not have any prior experience in terms of presentations. After my peer teaching session, I felt I had to improve on my presentation skills. The feedback from my peer teaching session was that there was not adequate eye contact. I also realized that I should try to avoid reading from the slides. When I practiced, I realized that I was not catching the attention of the audience and hence it would be difficult for the audience to follow me. I referred to the notes provided and additional material provided in the module website often. This enhanced my understanding. While practicing, I modulated my voice and used appropriate gestures. I also made frequent eye contact and avoided reading from the slides. After my oral presentation I understood that adequate practice is needed to make a good presentation. I really felt I have improved on the various verbal and non-verbal skills.

            I understand that presentations play a crucial part in my career. Before the start of this module I felt adequate experience was definitely needed to present well. This module provided the experience I needed and I am now confident of making a good presentation with the skills learnt in this module.

Reflection of Oral Presentation

      First I would like to thank Gwen, Xinyi, Clara and Hongwei for being really kind to give our group their actually allocated slot for oral presentation. It would have been really difficult for our group if we had to present first as we had not started with the slides for the oral presentation.

      We had an interesting topic for our proposal – implementing a campus wide webcast for lectures and tutorials. Since oral presentation contributed to a significant percent of the overall grade we realized that we had to work hard and make our presentation really effective. We met on the Sunday before our presentation to ensure we complete the final draft of our proposal. Significant amount of work was done but it was for the proposal and not for the presentation though they are interdependent.

      As it was the final week of the semester, our team (Team Engineering) members had tests and project submissions. We met online on Diwali, and by that time we had a rough draft of our presentation slides. Since we live far from one another, we thought it would be ideal to meet online and we practiced without any script for the first time. We somehow managed to meet in a teaching room in Engineering, the evening before our presentation and by that time we had prepared our scripts. We practiced and simultaneously edited the slides in order to make our presentation effective. We used animations, transitions and pictures to make our slides visually appealing. I practiced on the night before our presentation to ensure that my delivery appears natural.

   

      On the day of our presentation we wanted to have a dry run before our actual presentation but we were not able to do so. We used emotional approach at the beginning of our presentation. As I did not hold on to my script I was able to use hand gestures and eye contact appropriately. There were times during my presentation where there was not exact an exact synchronization between my speech and my slides. Apart from a few glitches like the one above i felt the presentation went well. I strongly believe it was a team effort and we worked well as a team.