My Final Reflections for ES2007S

It has been a long journey since the day I embarked on this module from the start of the semester till the very end of this module. As I was writing this post, a lot of thoughts went through my mind regarding what I had actually experienced for the past four months or so and the valuable lessons learnt…

It is an undeniable fact that through this module, one is able to learn many skills in communication and life skills. 

These skills include:

Problem Solving SkillsJ

In class, we were made to think critically and interact in class to address interpersonal and intercultural conflicts. I learnt the fact that one should always approach such problems with caution as mishandling it would definitely worsen the whole issue. There are various ways in handling a problem but the type of approach would definitely differ from each problem. Relating to my blog entry on the intercultural conflict, the party involved could actually have averted such a disaster in his encounter with his soon-to-be parents’ in law by actually doing a thorough research on his girlfriend’s family background. He should realize that not all everywhere in the world adopt the same cultural practice. Everyone has different perspectives towards certain issues and they too, bear a certain limit of tolerance. Hence, to overcome such problems, I adopted the art of being sensitive to the things that are happening around me.

Interactive Skills L

One would definitely benefit heavily from this course by gaining valuable knowledge and confidence in developing interactive skills. We were taught that besides the usual mode of speaking confidently, one has to take note of their non-verbal communication in order to send his intended message across. Nonetheless, I felt that I demonstrated little of the principles of effective communication in class due to my soft spoken nature and the fact that I was not able to critically reason as well as the rest. This was highly regretful on my part.

Written Skills J

Through blogging, we were given a chance to develop ideas and pen them down. In my opinion, I felt that my writing skills have definitely improved to a large extent through the many blog entries we were required to post. The blog entries were subjected under the scrutiny of the 7Cs and I am often quite worked up due to the need to conform within these parameters when churning up each blog assignment. It definitely does impose some form of pressure on the writer. However, I believed that such scrutiny is definitely necessary. It actually demonstrates a test of your writing skills given the constraints of writing the posts especially short and grammatically correct in which people normally pay less attention to these components.  

Teamwork J

In the course, I was exposed to collaborating with other classmates on several occasions to work on projects together which included the peer teaching assignment and the research project proposal. I realize that it is important to have motivated teammates for each project as it will definitely boost his or her morale during the execution of the project. It definitely makes the completion of project seem less stressful and easy. For that, I am thankful for the fact that I am blessed with excellent teammates who are highly efficient and highly motivated. :D

Overall learning J

In conclusion, it has been a great learning experience apart from the competitive nature of the module. That aside, I feel that I have definitely learnt much from this module as stated in the above skills. These skills are definitely important as it forms the basis to succeed and survive well in the working world.

Once again, thank you, Brad for all the invaluable skills that you have imparted to us and I would definitely recommend this module to my peers due to its relevance in the future working environment and the fun nature of the module.  :D

  

Oral Presentation Feedback for TEAM STEP UP... :D

Dearest classmates of ES2007S Grp 2,


Thank you for your kind attention during TEAM STEP UP's presentation on creation of underground tunnels and skywalk. 

From the group members of TEAM STEP UP which include Xiaoshi, Guo Chen, Wy How and me (Sylvester), we sincerely thank you for your time and effort in listening to our idea, as well as the insightful questions asked during the Q&A session. 

Hope you guys enjoyed our presentation :D :D :D Please do us a favour by dropping any comments or feedback about the presentation as we will value them indefinitely.

• The attached files and links contain footage of our presentation as well as slides used:There are two parts to the oral presentation video that we have just made ( due to insufficient memory space in the SD card :X) 

Presentation video part 1:

Presentation video part 2:

• A link to our presentation on creation of underground tunnels and skywalk if you guys want to have a clearer understanding of our presentation slides and data collated. http://prezi.com/presentation/kohwyhow@hotmail.com/fuibe03/#52_2816580

(I think you probably have to create an account to access the files if I am not wrong). Do take a look and enjoy.. :D

Cheers,
TEAM STEP UP

STEP UP STEP UP….. ALL THE WAY! :D

Firstly, I would like to start off by saying that I am very grateful to have Awesome Guo Chen, IT Savvy Wy How and inspiring TEAM leader, Xiaoshi as my group mates. Life has never been better with you guys :D

I would like to touch on the thinking and execution process to our oral presentation.

Preparation

To prepare for the Oral Presentation, we actually conducted our meetings mainly in the seminar room located in the NUS Science/ Medical Library. The place was huge and conducive for discussions. We also extended our discussions beyond the seminar rooms in Science Library to places like the Statistics Computer Laboratory and seminar room in the Faculty of Engineering for our last two meetings in preparation for the Oral Presentation. (How we got access to these rooms shall remain confidential. :X)

Use of slide ware and audiovisuals

We also adopted a different mode of presentation tool, Prenzi which actually greatly enhance visual aspects to our presentation instead of the monotonous PowerPoint slide presentation. For our presentation, we actually adopted sequential presentation bubble where it is linked by arrows to show to the flow of presentation. Each presentation bubble covers different aspects of the presentation ranging from interviews to benefits and challenges. In a way, it is more organized and impressive. The idea of having interviews filmed also played a huge part in making the overall presentation more engaging.

Delivery

In terms of delivery, our presentation started off with an unforeseen technical glitch associated with the sound. Due to our misjudgment of the audio systems in the laptop, the front interviews with the student  was not well heard by many and that actually affected the emotions of some of our presenters at the beginning who were all geared up to give a wonderful presentation.

For my part, I think I could have done a better job in presenting although my part was mainly just presenting data and analyzing the results in a news reporter style. The tone used could be more professional like covering data for stock markets. In my opinion, I felt that the idea of presenting the information to the committee to sell our idea in news fashion was highly relevant and refreshing. Having information reported in news style requires high professionalism as seen on television. In addition, viewers would be able to obtain the concise and direct information instead of having an overload of information. Since we have adopted a news report style to present our information, sentences had to be kept short but straight to the point. Hence, the length of presentation for each presenter will be short too.

Lastly, I would like to give a personal note to my group mates:

Though our presentation was not smooth on the day itself, I believed that ‘our unique and fresh concept far outweigh any undesirable factors’ as quoted from my SMS to my groupmates. It is sure a long journey since we started off with our project proposal on skywalks and underground tunnels to this awesome presentation we have, seeing everyone dressed formally. I still could remember the time where we jokingly said that if our proposal on skywalk and underground tunnel was accepted by NUS and that the idea was patented by us, we would become famous overnight and just quit school. :D

The times shared during the meetings that invoked joy and laughter was beyond description. If I hope to be in this awesome team and retain this fabulous name, Team STEP UP if we take any similar modules in future for the memories shared will definitely etch a place in my heart…