Critical Reflection

UCS1001 has introduced to me concepts such as the Paul Elder framework and writing skills for summaries, literature reviews and technical reports. There are two main take-aways that I have from this module, communication and research.

Communication in this module was taught with critical thinking skills and processes. How critically evaluating the information and message and then delivering it across is important. All the while, I found it difficult to express my thoughts on the subject whether be it in the form of writing or speech. However, skills such as the Paul Elder framework taught me to take a step back and think. What do I want to convey and how can I bring it across in such a way that my listener would be willing to listen and digest the information. If anything, it has made me think deeper and aided me greatly during my prep for my tech report presentation. It has allowed my group to come up with creative ways to convey our information. However, this was not enough as I can observe through my writing that a lot of redundant information continues to be added in by me when conveying an idea and find it difficult to change that habit of mine. Regardless, at the end of this module, I found myself able to provide comments and suggestions to more effective writing when reading through my peer’s work, and of course my own. I was able to critically evaluate information and how to convey them better.

Throughout the semester, looking for information has never been so thorough for me.  There were specifically two tasks, the literature review and technical report, which pushed me to look through countless journal articles and picking out information for the first time. Reading journal articles and books for research and sources varied greatly from the time I was in polytechnic. Due to my lack of experience, I was struggling to find the information I need efficiently which caused me to take a lengthy amount of time to finish up my assignments. The importance of properly citing the sources was also stressed countlessly which I appreciated as I used to pay little to no attention to the references. This process is especially useful as it has helped me this semester with my other module, MEC1151. It has taught me to reference credible sources and to cite them accurately. This will be beneficial for future reports to come, whether during my time in school, IWSP, or even when I go out to work in the future.

While working on the tech report project, I encountered many difficulties such as the deciding the focus of my group’s direction as well as how to effectively delegate work to each member. This project has allowed me to work on many aspects that I was worried and insecure about, such as my speech and writing. I have learnt how to deal work under pressure and to ideate effectively due to the restraint of time. I have learnt many things from my team member as well throughout this module. After talking to Xing He more, I have learnt that he has so many brilliant ideas that when he opened up, he was also able to keep our group focused the subject. Zong Xiang is a fantastic team player as he is responsible and gets work done on time, which is a quality I appreciate.

Even though the start was rocky, I am glad that this module provided me a pleasant experience where I could learn how to better my skillsets though the lessons and my capable teammates. Having an approachable professor has also made this learning experience more fun. I plan to continue cultivating these skills that I have picked up, ensuring that as I write more reports and do more presentations, I would be able to confidently express myself effectively and critically.