Critical Reflection

Coming into the module Effective Communication (MEC1281), I gave myself two goals: to express myself more clearly and to improve my social skills. With regards to expressing myself more clearly in terms of ideas when doing assignments, I’ve realised that it is always best to first keep my ideas simple and focused. For example, from the summary and reader response drafts, I realized that organisation is key for clear communication. I discovered that in academic writing, one usually puts out the main idea, gives three supporting details, and then summarizes the three paragraphs while stating the main idea.In addition, it is also important to think about what the audience wants to learn, know or understand when reading a report or assignment. Secondly, as Effective Communication required us to work in a team and on research projects, I was able to find my voice. Being more introverted in nature, speaking up has always been difficult for me as I was worried of the judgment that would come with it. Throughout the module, I realised that holding my tongue would only leave my team to make assumptions about my thoughts and values, and they would never really know how I would actually feel. Thus, I made a conscious effort to share my feedback on drafts and ideas when necessary. I’ve also come to realise that Effective Communication (MEC128) has taught me more than just being able to express myself clearly and improving my social skills. More notably, I was able to hone my critical thinking skills. From the assignments, I was constantly justifying my statements with text evidence from research journals, websites and would often include an example to make these statements clearer and provide more information to the reader. Doing so, I would be able to transfer these skills to my future modules to develop more balanced arguments and express myself more clearly. During the research project, my group and I had chosen to do the topic on smart canes. My biggest takeaway for this assignment is not only on the new found knowledge I’ve gained from looking up research papers and articles, but I have also come to realise the importance of research. Doing research to support one’s own points in a research paper improves the validity and reliability of it. Thus, it helps to construct a stronger and more reliable research paper. Additionally, I also gained more confidence when it came to doing presentations. I’ve learnt that preparation and practice is key. Moreover, thinking of the purpose of the presentation is also important as this helps me shape the presentation, because it must then be designed to achieve the objective and deliver the desired outcomes. When presenting, my group and I were supposed to pitch to WeWALK LIMITED UK. This mock presentation was one of my key takeaways from this module as it was very effectively able to replicate how a real life marketing plan would be conducted. I also learnt the importance of showcasing the best of the product. For example, we should emphasize the benefits and portray the limitations in a positive light. This will result in better client satisfaction. Lastly, probably the most challenging part when doing this assignment was that working in a team would mean that multiple people would be editing a document at the same time. It would then sometimes get messy and confusing. However, I am thankful I got closer to my teammates as I did not know some of them at the start. The great thing is that all of my teammates were reliable despite sometimes having differing opinions.