Daniela Sandoval - Refelction

 

Reflection - SPC 2608 Class Presentations 

    Doing my first presentation since high school I felt somewhat nervous to be in front of a large crowd once again. Thankfully after getting more information on the project I realized that the ENC 1101 and ENC 1102 class that I took in dual enrollment had prepared me very well for this moment. Close to the end of the semester for ENC 1102 we had been assigned a research project on a global issue of our choice. The only catch is that we had to show various viewpoints on our topic and make sure that the sources were were using were reliable. My professor then, Lubna Khan gave us a brief lesson in how to research sources for our topics and know they were the right ones.

    When it came to choosing which chapter I was going to be presenting I aimlessly chose chapter 5 from the chapters our group was assigned. As soon as I began to read into the chapter I realized that the topic was something familiar which gave me a boost of confidence in my presentation skills. While I was making my slides of the presentation I tired to make sure that I kept the writing on the screen to a minimum and focused more on engaging the class with my own voice and choice of examples. Knowing that I tend to use words like "um" and "like" I made sure to practice what I was going to say as if I was speaking to a public audience beforehand to make sure it didn't seem like I was stuttering or using filler words to get by. Although the nerves did almost get to me whenever I felt as if I did not know something i took a brief pause smiled and regathered my thoughts and be sure of myself in knowing the topic.

    Not only did I get to use my past knowledge on this assignment but I also learned many new things about the research process and public speaking. I also wasn't''t used to woking in a group because I was so used to someone in the group not pulling their weight and having it fall back on me to do the rest f the work, but with good communication and setting days for meetings outside of class time we were all able to go over what had to be done and who's side of the project needed more work as well as practice the day before of out presentation to make sure we felt comfortable with the work we had done and not seem unprepared. 

    Group 1 was in charge of creating their presentation based on chapters one through four. Although I did not look at the length of their chapter compared to those of my group (group 2). I imagined that those chapters did not consists of as much information as the rest seeing as they are introduction to the book. While in the beginning I had higher hopes since we were given plenty of time to make our presentations and read our assigned chapters.The work that was done by group 1 did not feel as put together as it should have. A majority of the members of the group only included videos in their presentations which made up for the lack of exposition. The videos although informative felt very long The assignment was more or less for us to explain the chapter in our own words and instead I felt as if they used others words to explain it. Although the videos were interesting I was hoping to hear more from my peers and be more engaged in the presentation. Seeing so many things at once on the slide caused a slight overstimulation in my brain because it was so much information at once that my mind could not process. I was hoping the presentation would have been more cohesive in the layout and design area. I am glad that each of the presenters were able to express their ideas of the chapter in a way that seemed interesting to the them but since it was a group project I believe one theme to keep the presentation consistent would have been a better choice. The participants of group 1 all introduced their chapters with a very large sense of confidence and their tone offered a sense of credibility. 

    I believe that my group (group 2) did a pretty good job when it came to our presentation.  Emily and me stated off and although we got confused in the beginning on who was assigned what parts we were able to work it all out. We wanted create a Kahoot for the end of our presentation and had already come up with the question we were going to ask to make sure the class was engaged and truly absorbed the knowledge from our presentation. Unfortunately we did not have enough time to finish setting up on someones computer and share it on the screen so everyone could participate. Our group made sure to discuss before we began working on our presentation that it would be engaging for the audience since out class is roughly 3 hours long and each one of the presentations was going to be about forty-five minutes long be did not want to bore the class with just simple over read facts. 

    Seeing as group 3 was the last to go I felt bad for them in some sort because as I had previously mentioned our class is 3 hours long and each group had fourty-five minutes to present, so by the time it got to be their turn the class was most likely a a breaking point of listening to everyone talk and weren't as engaged as the first presentation and maybe even the second. Even thought they had this disadvantage they managed to keep the class engaged and have a clear layout and design for the slides of their presentations. They had an even amount of videos as well as speaking time and when they spoke it felt as if they had gained a lot of knowledge from their topic and wanted to share with the rest of the class and make sure they learned.

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