Oral Presentation Reflections

Yayyy!!:D the heart accelerating oral presentation is finally over! Coupled with the finals of my laboratory practical module which lasted for 7hours yesterday, I heaved a sigh of relief as the week concluded. I am glad that it’s all over!:) I am having mixed feeling. On one hand feeling that it was over but disappointed on the other as I felt that I could have done much better. I was very disappointed and the presentation was below my expectations :(

As compared to peer teaching, I felt much more prepared and managed to rehearse a few more times. However, I was still very nervous(hope it’s not too obvious) and felt that there were much room for improvements on my part.I feel that there is a need to create an impactful start to capture the audience’s attention so as to get them interested in our presentation hence I refined how I can begin the presentation continually for a quite number of times; the actual presentation is the 5^th version haha.

I like presentation that starts with a quote as I feel that it is professional and sets the audience thinking. After several hours of search I manage to find a quote by Henry Ford, however we felt it would be better to use it to end the conclusion :D

During the presentation, I felt that I started quite well with confidence and managed to keep the audience engaged as I see many of them were nodding in agreement with the example I shown and especially when I relate an individual(myself)’s example of how alarming one can actually impact the environment in just one different approach – the choice of mode of transportation. However, unfortunately a small hiccup happened. 2 of my slides went missing and one of which was the objectives slide. This made my confidence level dropped. I was too nervous realising the missing slide and fumbled upon quite a few words :( I looked at my team for help but it dawned upon me that I am the speaker at the moment, delivering the presentation and I am the only one who can save myself out of the situation. Therefore, I tried hard to compose myself in the shortest period possible as I am aware that there is only 5minutes of airtime and I would not be given a second chance.

Upon reflection, I do know the objectives and content for my part at the back of my hand. I do not need the slides to guide me of what I am going to say next and should have just continue calmly and “pretend” that nothing went wrong as the audience can just listen to what I am going to say as the slides are just an aid which serves to emphasize my points. However, easier said than done. Regretfully, I failed to remain calm as I was taken aback as I did check the slides many times and all was well. It maybe because when one of my team mates edited the parts in the morning and not all the slides were copied over to her saved version. However, I must say it’s still negligence on my part that I did not do a final run through just right before the presentation. I will bear this in mind and make sure I run through every single slide the next time.

As compared to peer teaching, I feel that I referred less often to the cue cards. Cue cards give me additional psychological support :) however, while holding them, it made me want to refer and follow what is written exactly on my speech and actually distracted me. Thus, at the later part of the presentation, I decided to do away with them and deliver what I wanted to convey to the audience freely. From this experience, I learnt that I can express myself better and engage the audience without cue cards. Confidence is really the key to presentation :) and the continual practices have helped me in handling unanticipated situation and regain my composure. One thing I can and should really work is to be situation-smart so that I can better handle impromptu situation and do also without cue cards! I hope the next presentation(if I have a chance) will be cue card-less! Some of the good things were I managed to maintain eye contact with the audience, volume was appropriate loud and clear. I used non-verbal cues such as appropriate gestures to bring a point across(I hope so as when I practiced infront of the mirror looking at myself it was ok!:) ) and made attempts to emphasize the main points. Lastly, I remembered to acknowledge and thank the audience during Q&A session. However, there is still much room for improvements on my presentation skills.

Team reflections

I am thankful to be in Team Clover!:D I am really glad that Team Clover showed team spirit and gave each other encouragements and support throughout the presentation. Our team showed respect to our team members when each is presenting and nod with a smile on our faces when our team members look back at each other for assurance. I believed this is also what that give me support to regain my composure for the small hiccup. We standardise our dress code to white top and black bottoms and decided to put on a blazer!:) as it look more formal(and cool hahaha and we were secretly feeling suave!:D).

I am proud of the slides and animations we did for our presentation slides. :) I find the fonts, colours and animation used were appropriate as it effectively highlighted our important points. Pictures were also added to enhance the visual experience of the audience. We put in a lot of efforts into designing the slides and set aside time to standardise all the font sizes, alignment and animation so that it looked coherent as a team. I am glad that it turned out well and the audience were appreciative of them. :)

Team spirit is further displayed towards the conclusion part where we stood up one by one to further enhance the meaning of the quote! :D We were quite nervous for the Q&A session even though we were prepared but we did not know what questions await us! And WOW we have overwhelming responses!! Its good in a way as it means that we managed to engage the audience and they were listening to our proposed solutions with interest! YAY! Furthermore, the questions posted by the audience gave us a chance to clarify our solutions and emphasize our points. Our point that we have taken note is BRT could have been better clarified if both sides of the roads were shown. Some questions from the floor were not anticipated and we were alittle lost for answers. I felt that the Q&A session has room for improvements as some of our answers could be better phrased. I believe we will improve with more exposure to handling questions. (:

Overall, I felt that our presentation was effective! (: Through this presentation, it further emphasizes the point the both verbal and non-verbal communications are essential for an effective presentation.

ALL THE BEST TO TEAM ENERGY AND TEAM GREEN FOR THEIR PRESENTATION TML!:D hope everything will go smoothly for them too! I have really gained a lot out of this research project and I believe these memorable and valuable experiences will bring us a long way! (: