Critical Reflection

 

13 weeks has passed since the first UCS1001 lesson was conducted. It was fruitful and helpful to my learning experience both as a student and as a person. At the start of the trimester, we were tasked to write a formal letter of introduction and set some goals for ourselves for the module. I feel that they are still work in progress as there are somethings that still can be improved on. Firstly, the tech report’s oral presentation. I feel that I have improved as a confident speaker as I was able to not stutter a lot with my presentation. Moreover, I was able to get my points of the background information of my group to the audience in a clear and concise manner. However, I feel that my usage of space as a speaker could be improved in the future as I did not effectively use the space given to me. In future presentations, I will keep this in mind and polish my presentation skills. In my opinion, the module has helped me to be a confident speaker as it has taught us how to present to get the attention and the message across to our audience. The second goal I had was to give and receive critical and constructive feedbacks. During the module, there were many opportunities for me to give and receive feedback from my fellow classmates. From the first assignment of the formal letter to the final assignment of the tech report, we were given the time to read through each other’s works and provide feedbacks on what was done right, what was done wrong and what can be improved. For example, the summary reader response assignment peer evaluation that we have done in class. Benjamin and I was grouped up to give feedback to Benedict and Zahier’s summary reader responses. At first, I was not too sure how to provide feedback to others as I am afraid that my feedback might not be constructive and useful. As we were slowly reading through the works, I have slowly learnt how to formulate my feedbacks to the users so that they can improve on their work. The same goes when I am receiving feedbacks from my peers. I would amend my work according to what they have feedbacked to me and continue to work on what was done right. This will be helpful to me going forward as a student as giving and receiving feedbacks on works is essential to improving. I will definitely use what I have learnt in UCS1001 to aid me in my future modules and career to give constructive and critical feedback to my fellow classmates and future colleagues.

 

One thing that I felt was crucial to the module was the process of the tech report assignment. This is because, I was not part of the group of students that chose the teams. Hui Xiang chose me and Xing He to be part of his formed group. Moreover, we decided that I should be the team leader for our group. There were many ups and downs throughout the assignment. Initially we were known as team Laundrymen as we have done our research for our topic. However, after thorough discussions within the group and with Prof Brad, we have decided to switch our topic focus to water dispensers. This was a crunch period for us as we had to start from zero and were in a rush for time. Moreover, we were all stressed out as we had other assignments and test that we must prepare for. The good news was that we were able to formulate something up for tech report and got an incredible pitch presentation for our oral presentation as well. I feel that this was possible because all three of us can communicate very well with each other to achieve what we want for our goals. I learnt that no matter how difficult a task can be, teamwork and communication within the group are very crucial to achieving the group’s goal.

Moreover, I would like to take this opportunity to thank Hui Xiang and Xing He from team Purifiers. They have made the tech report process less difficult and even made it enjoyable learning process for me. I would also like to thank Prof Brad as well as the whole class for making learning in the UCS1001 class very enjoyable and memorable for me.

Dankeschön!