reflective writing about presentation

reflective writing about presentation

Reflective Writing about Presentation

1. Introduction

Reflective writing has become established as a key component of reflective practice and central to the notion of learning from experience. Claims are made in the reflective practice literature of the capacity for reflection to enable practitioners to challenge the taken-for-granted assumptions of their own paradigms, to critically examine practice where they have acted in accordance with these assumptions in order to prove their validity, and to act with more informed intuition. The paradigm that is considered the most rigorous but also the most limiting within Kuhn’s description in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions of learning and discovery leading to permanent change is the so-called technical rationality of the natural sciences. This is associated with instrumental reasoning, where the formation of an end justifies an efficient means to achieve it, and claims based on causal relations between the means and the end, or between the means/end and its internal/external conditions that are invariant under the same circumstances (Schon, 1983). This paradigm situates practice problems within contexts of uncertainty but assumes that they are tractable to problems of applied science. In methods of reflection driven by problem-solving or the testing of scientific hypotheses, evidence of cognitive change often does not extend beyond testing the same framework of understanding on the same form of problem and then claiming to have found the “right” solution. Gaining a depth of insight which comes to challenge the very framework of understanding and practice requires a different assumption about the nature of practice problems and a different kind of reflection. Schon (1983) develops the concept of reflection on-in-action and reflection in-action. The former is contemplation on a past event with a view to understanding its underlying features which were a source of puzzlement.

2. Preparation for the Presentation

Gather as many resources as you can concerning your presentation topic. This can include books, websites, magazine articles, newspapers, videotapes, interviews, and people you already know. In the initial stage, you should limit your resources to the ones you are most likely to use. You must also consider assessing the quality of resources since not all information is valid. For each source, determine what it is, where it is, and how it can be useful to the information you are presenting. This will be helpful when you reference others’ work. Always record a source when using its information so that you can avoid plagiarism. Any notes taken during research should be labeled clearly concerning its source. An easy way to do this is to have a referencing system that is color-coded. Make sure you know the due date for the task, exactly what is expected of you, and who your audience is. This will affect the way you prepare and give you an idea of how the information should best be presented. You will need to plan on what content will be put into your presentation. This is where you will formulate your thesis statement. It is best to keep your content simple and clear to avoid confusion. Always prepare a little more content than needed in case of time constraints or disapproval. You can always leave the surplus content for further discussion if needed. This will also act as a backup plan. A great way to organize your information is to make a mind map. Place your thesis statement in the center. Draw lines coming out from the statement and label them with ideas that relate to your thesis. This can be made more detailed with sub-ideas. Now draw more lines coming off those ideas and label them with information that could be used to back the ideas. This map will show the hierarchy of your information and what is most important. Another way to organize information is to make a list of directly related points flowing from your thesis. Print out or write your information neatly so that it is easy to read and understand. It might also be helpful to create overheads if allowed. This will be useful in case of computer failure and is easy to read on the big screen.

3. Delivery of the Presentation

The delivery of the presentation should be held on a day mutually convenient. You should aim to deliver the presentation in a lecture theatre to replicate the conditions of the real thing. The presentation should be recorded on a video recorder. This is to enable you to watch yourself back and to enable the tutor to mark the presentation more accurately. Watching yourself back on video may make you feel uncomfortable, but this really is one of the most useful things you can do to see how you can improve. You need to take the marking criteria with you to the presentation and ask the tutor to mark you while you present. This will enable you to see if there are any points you are not offering in the presentation and it will highlight the areas you need to develop the most. After the recorded presentation, compare your performance to the marking criteria and give yourself a mark. This process will give you and the tutor a good idea of what mark you will achieve, but more importantly it will highlight exactly what you need to do to gain a higher mark. Public speaking is said to be one of the most common fears and it can be extremely daunting, especially if English isn’t your first language. However, it is a very useful skill to have and it will enable you to build confidence and knowledge of your topic area. At first, you may feel the need to memorize the script of the entire presentation. TempDataWorks cited that the best presenters do not remember what they are going to say next, they remember to tell their next point. This means that you should become familiar with your presentation, but you do not necessarily need to remember the exact wording.

4. Audience Response and Feedback

There were a few barriers to audience participation. These included the environment of the presentation, because it was in a lecture theatre. It was difficult for people in their small groups to have a quiet discussion without disturbing others around them. Also, the time constraints of the presentation meant that certain individual discussions could not be ceased to bring the audience back to a whole class discussion.

Throughout these methods of audience participation, there were verbal indications from the audience that they were understanding the topic. This was mainly evident during the question and answer sessions where the presenter was getting positive responses from the audience.

The presenter involved the audience’s participation through a number of methods. These included: – Question and Answer: The presenter asked questions which would make the audience reflect on their current practice and how they would like to change this in the future. – Group discussion: This was an effective method as the presenter had previously identified small groups within the audience prior to the presentation. The task the groups were given was to discuss the feasibility of the project within their practice at the current time. – Role play: This was good for the audience as it was not only breaking up the presentation, but also allowing the audience to visually see an example of how the project could be put into practice.

Audience participation on the day of the presentation was excellent. As the purpose of the presentation was explained to the audience, the facilitator set out her expectations for the audience in how they would benefit from the session. This was an excellent method for getting the audience mentally involved in the session before it had even begun.

5. Personal Growth and Lessons Learned

The first thing that I have learned from this presentation is to be confident in everything that I do. To be honest, at first I was not really confident with my work and my group members said that actually they were also worried that I would not be able to do it well. But then, I just told myself to be confident and do my best. This has showed me that when we are confident with ourselves and our work, the work will turn out better than we expected. This can be seen when my animation was chosen as the best and also my Agama education teacher said that the mods for Pendidikan Agama Islam were very interesting. This has given me encouragement and I feel that I’ve been taught a lesson by Allah that I should always be confident in whatever that I do. Confidence is the key to success.

Guideline 1. Use a persuasive tone in your response. To start, personal growth and lessons learned are very related to each other as personal growth is a challenge of doing new things and making changes in your life, by learning new lessons. As for myself, I admit that this is also a big challenge for me and the lesson I will never forget. Hello everyone, my name is Nur Fatin Amira Binti Nazrin and today I want to share a few things about this presentation and how it has been a lesson to me.