Week 13 Submission #2: Critical Reflection

In the blink of an eye, it is already the final week of classes. For my critical reflection, I will be reflecting on my Module Learning and Project Learning. Overall, I would like to thank Professor Brad for his valuable lessons and feedback, as well as the rest of my classmates for their constructive feedback during the course. I hope to keep learning from everyone in the future.

Module Learning

I recall setting two main goals for myself at the start of this course, which are to learn the names of everyone in my class and be able to connect their names to them, as well as to learn how to better articulate my thoughts.

For my first goal, I am proud to say that I am now able to recall the name of my classmates with ease. This is partly due to the numerous opportunities provided by Professor Brad, during which we were grouped with different classmates and required to work together. Through these group and paired activities, it would be remiss of me if I were to not make full use of these opportunities to make new friends by reaching out more. By taking these chances to interact with my classmates, I feel that I have gained the skill to be able to at least start a conversation to get to know others better. By knowing my classmates better, I find that I have been able to connect their names to them easier, which has helped me achieve my goal.

For my second goal, I have been able to work on articulating my thoughts. During class, Professor Brad likes to call on his students to read or answer questions. After experiencing the last thirteen weeks in an environment where I may be expected to, and have had to answer questions on the fly, I have managed to utilise the 7Cs and Paul Elder Framework. Although I can still see room for improvement, I am happy to say that I have achieved the skills needed to help me to communicate my thoughts more effectively. In fact, I believe that with more time and experience, I will be able to get even better at communicating.

Overall, I am glad that I have managed to overcome these weaknesses of mine to attain my goals, and I am sure that I will be able to put these skills that I have obtained during this course to use in the future to grow as a communicator. Moving forward, I will be sure to continue exposing myself to more articles and readings to hone my critical thinking skills. I will also step up more during team projects to convey my ideas and views and hone my communication skills.

Project Learning

For my research project with Team Automatic, our final solution developed was the Auto-Rack. Although I have written and edited many reports in the past, this is the first module for which I have had to write a technical report, with APA citations. As I was going in rather blind, Professor Brad’s report templates and advice was extremely helpful. The suggested content provided for each report section helped my team and me to organise our ideas to flow smoothly from one section to the next. 

From the feedback given by Professor Brad and our classmates, we received input multiple times on the areas of improvement for our report. The input we received was extremely helpful, as it helped make our report even easier to read and digest. Ultimately, we were able to finish our report on time, by breaking down the structure of the report into smaller sections to work on individually. After writing our individual sections, we would then look at each other’s sections to edit and improve upon. 

Additionally, I was able to improve my citation skills throughout the writing of this technical report, especially with all the different sources and figures we had to use. I was also able to put my editing skills to use while editing the report, which has helped me to hone my skills. Although there were a few disagreements on where certain content should be placed, and how much content should be included, my team and I were able to communicate our concerns and come to an agreement to resolve the issues fairly quickly.

Through the technical report, I have learnt how to properly write a technical report, all while adhering to APA citation guidelines. Although everyone was extremely busy with the workload of the other modules, we still made time to work on this project together, all while communicating to the best of our abilities. I will be sure to put the writing and communication skills learnt from writing this technical report to use in my other university modules and even in the industry in the future.

Date: 9 April 2022 (10am)