Critical Reflection

Name: Lim Yan Chen
Student ID: 2201776

Module Learning:

Looking back at the goals previously set for the course, I believe that significant progress has been made improving upon weaknesses such as voicing out constructive feedback and opinions during times of conflict. I experienced this during meetings with my groupmates and I believe that critical thinking and reflection allowed me to voice out my thoughts to resolve these conflicts because it helped me to organise my thoughts and understand and pinpoint the underlying problems, defusing the situation before things worsened.

During these 13 weeks, I have learned about the importance of critical thinking and reflection, being able to reflect on one's experiences and through this process, looking in-depth to the problem to formulate solutions and countermeasures, ensuring that situations like the one experienced will no longer occur/ be resolved with ease. A good visualisation of this process was introduced in class in the form of Dewey's Reflective Thought and Action, with there being other examples introduced in class but all the figures had a common flow. That flow is shown below:

Step 1: Identifying the problem

Step 2: Analysing the problem and the elements that caused the problem

Step 3: Testing hypothesis derived from the analysis

Step 4: Finding and applying the solution

In class, we applied these steps in our summary reader response and later in our technical report, to identify problems with existing solutions and proposing opportunities to improve or innovate. Before learning about the process of identifying problem scenarios, I would occasionally have episodes where I found it really difficult to focus on objectives in a project due to ideas constantly populating and clouding my mind. In other times I would be so zeroed in on a certain aspect, I fail to see the bigger picture and the end result of these projects were not satisfactory as a result. With these new skills I acquired from this module, I believe that these skills are applicable in the workplace to ensure that projects and conflicts between coworkers can be resolved.

Project Learning:

When selecting the research used as reference in our project report, it was important to ensure that the information sourced was viable and relevant to the subject. The introduction of Google Scholar and other search engines that filter and source for specific research papers and articles helped tremendously as generally searches via Google Search brought about vast amount of data that were not always reliable or relevant. Future utilisation of Google Scholar will prove to be beneficial for writing research papers and articles.

On the subject of writing skills, I was able to fully utilise the use of APA citations and conventions in the report and learning proper grammar and expanding my vocabulary are vital to ensure that the information conveyed is fluent and easily understood by the reader.

Presenting to a room full of people would have brought about anxiety for me and my project mates, had it not for the presentation skills taught in this module. These presentation skills were introduced via websites by renowned presenters such as Garr Reynolds, who provided tips improve the quality of the presentation. These include the following:

  • Preparation tips - i.e. Asking yourself why the information relevant to the audience
  • Design tips - i.e. Using contrasts to highlight key points and making visuals clear
  • Delivery tips - i.e. Maintaining good eye contact and moving away from lectern without obstructing vision
  • Slide makeovers - i.e Designing for back of the room and making slides clutter free, easy to read
Through these experiences, I have learned all the skills stated above and have become a well-rounded member for the project, both capable of writing informative reports with proper citations and conventions and a confident presenter, capable of giving presentations that are interactive, providing information while being concise. However, I believe there is much to learn and improve, in terms of teamwork and further improving the skills mentioned above, so that I will be able to communicate effectively with colleagues in the workplace.


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