Personally I feel that this course is very useful and inspiring in my four years of study in university as well as the life after graduation.I have learnt about the principles and skills of communication and teamwork during the tutorials.In addition,we have been given group projects for us to apply the communication and teamwork skills in real-life cases.
I strongly feel that after the programming and problem-solving projects I have greatly improved my communication skills.I am also having a better understanding of the importance of teamwork in today's world.
First of all,I have learnt about the 7C's of effective communication and have been practicing them throughout this course.During group discussion,I tried my best to make myself clear by speaking loudly and pronouncing correctly.I also kept my sentences short but concrete in order to achieve conciseness of effective communication.In fact,I think this is the part which I have improved the most.Other than 7C's of effective communication,I have also improved on my verbal and non-verbal communication skills.This can be seen from the two oral presentations.Before I took this module,I was very weak in presentations because I was a very quiet person and dared not to speak in front of people.However,I personally feel that my performances in the two oral presentations of this module were satisfying.I have improved my eye-contact with the audience.Other than that,I have been more confident during the presentation.I also tried to use appropriate hand gestures to capture the attention of the audience.However,there are still many skills that I need to practice and improve on.For example,I should be more confident in sharing my ideas during group discussion.Most of the time I was listening to my team members without speaking a word.I hope I can speak out and share as many ideas as possible during the group meeting in the future.
Throughout the programming project,my team managed to apply the skills of effective communication and teamwork to achieve as best result as possible.For example,one of my team members was not doing his part responsibly and always looked for excuses when he failed to accomplish his task.Although the other three members were feeling unhappy about his behaviour,they avoided having interpersonal conflicts with him.Instead,we tried our best to help him to resolve his problems and finish his part of the project.We even encouraged him to do his part as much as possible and told him that we would settle the rest as a team.Through all these actions,we managed to achieve effective teamwork throughout the project.Besides,we also saved the time spent on resolving conflicts for improving our program.
On the whole,I have improved my overall communication skills through this module.I also have a better understanding of myself since I have known my strengths and weaknesses better.I am sure there will be more opportunities for me to practice the communication skills taught in this module and they will help me to achieve as many successes as possible in the future.
4/12/2010
3/29/2010
Reflection on oral presentation 2
My team has given an oral presentation about food wastage and hunger on 22 March,2010.We have prepared the presentation for almost one month and generally I felt that our presentation was satisfactory.We had a good time management and we presented our topic with a clear structure.We made use of many pictures which were more attractive than wordy slides.At the end of the presentation,we showed a short but overwhelming video which emphasized the objective of our presentation.
I was in charge of the last part of the presentation -- solutions to food wastage and world hunger.I talked about six different ways to resolve the problem of food wastage and hunger.I tried my best to explain in detail what these means of solution are with only pictures in my slides.I was also making myself clear by speaking loudly and slowly.There were not many pronounciation mistakes during my presentation.Moreover,I maintained my eye contact with the audience throughout my presentation.
However,I felt that there are still many areas that I need improve on.Although I was having eye contact with the audience,there was still a lack of confidence in my presentation.In addition,my hand gestures were not enough.This actually exposed my lack of confidence.I think I really need to put in effort to practise my hand gestures.Last but not least,I was keeping silent during the Q&A session.This is partly because of lacking in confidence of answering the questions.Besides,I was not very sure of the contents and evidence of our presentation.This is the other factor which prevented me from answering the questions and I think I should make myself fully prepared in the next presentation.
Generally I think my performance in the presentation was satisfactory.I have actually improved from the previous oral presentation.I believe I can do better than this in the next presentation if I work hard on those parts that I was weak in.
I was in charge of the last part of the presentation -- solutions to food wastage and world hunger.I talked about six different ways to resolve the problem of food wastage and hunger.I tried my best to explain in detail what these means of solution are with only pictures in my slides.I was also making myself clear by speaking loudly and slowly.There were not many pronounciation mistakes during my presentation.Moreover,I maintained my eye contact with the audience throughout my presentation.
However,I felt that there are still many areas that I need improve on.Although I was having eye contact with the audience,there was still a lack of confidence in my presentation.In addition,my hand gestures were not enough.This actually exposed my lack of confidence.I think I really need to put in effort to practise my hand gestures.Last but not least,I was keeping silent during the Q&A session.This is partly because of lacking in confidence of answering the questions.Besides,I was not very sure of the contents and evidence of our presentation.This is the other factor which prevented me from answering the questions and I think I should make myself fully prepared in the next presentation.
Generally I think my performance in the presentation was satisfactory.I have actually improved from the previous oral presentation.I believe I can do better than this in the next presentation if I work hard on those parts that I was weak in.
2/16/2010
Reflection on meeting 1
Personally I feel that the meeting was a successful one although there was still space for improvement.
At first,everybody in my group felt a bit nervous because everything that was discussed would be recorded.In fact,during the first few minutes of the meeting we all felt very awkward.However,after the very first few minutes of maladjustment,we managed to discuss in a more natural and efficient manner.
Throughout the meeting,we have achieved our initial objective of planning all the possible functions that we were going to use for the cg1102 lab 3.We also managed to discuss a little bit about how the whole program should be looked like after implementing every single code for it.Since time is limited,we focused more on the functions that we were about to use in the program.This was quite difficult because the questions given did not have any specific instructions.
Firstly we have reached a consensus that we should use a "product" class to store the different attributes that the question required.Other than that,we have also decided that we should use a linked-list to store the information of different products.Once the linked-list is established,the user will be able to traverse through the list to find the specific products that he or she wants.Lastly,we discussed about the "UI" class which is simply what the users see on the screen.By accessing the methods in the "UI" class,the user will be able to modify the data in the system and the user does not need to know the actual implementation.
As one of the member of the team,I feel that my contribution to the meeting was not satisfiable.I need to talk more and participate more actively in group discussions.Although I tried to give my own opinions during the meeting,most of the time I just repeated or re-confirmed what has been discussed.I will certainly improve these team communication skills and anticipate a better performance of myself in the next meeting.
On the whole,I really felt that this meeting is significant and useful.It practiced our problem-solving skills as well as teamwork and communication skills.
At first,everybody in my group felt a bit nervous because everything that was discussed would be recorded.In fact,during the first few minutes of the meeting we all felt very awkward.However,after the very first few minutes of maladjustment,we managed to discuss in a more natural and efficient manner.
Throughout the meeting,we have achieved our initial objective of planning all the possible functions that we were going to use for the cg1102 lab 3.We also managed to discuss a little bit about how the whole program should be looked like after implementing every single code for it.Since time is limited,we focused more on the functions that we were about to use in the program.This was quite difficult because the questions given did not have any specific instructions.
Firstly we have reached a consensus that we should use a "product" class to store the different attributes that the question required.Other than that,we have also decided that we should use a linked-list to store the information of different products.Once the linked-list is established,the user will be able to traverse through the list to find the specific products that he or she wants.Lastly,we discussed about the "UI" class which is simply what the users see on the screen.By accessing the methods in the "UI" class,the user will be able to modify the data in the system and the user does not need to know the actual implementation.
As one of the member of the team,I feel that my contribution to the meeting was not satisfiable.I need to talk more and participate more actively in group discussions.Although I tried to give my own opinions during the meeting,most of the time I just repeated or re-confirmed what has been discussed.I will certainly improve these team communication skills and anticipate a better performance of myself in the next meeting.
On the whole,I really felt that this meeting is significant and useful.It practiced our problem-solving skills as well as teamwork and communication skills.
2/07/2010
Resolving Interpersonal Conflict
Everybody in this world has the experience of having conflict with someone else.This is actually inevitable as no one in the world if of the same.Every individual person has his or her own characteristic,belief,value,and way of living.Conflict arises because there is a opposition or clash in one or more of these attributes between two parties.Today I am going to talk about how interpersonal conflicts arises and the possible ways to resolve them.
In order to resolve interpersonal conflict,we have to understand the root of the conflict.I would like to categorize conflict into two types--gentle conflict and violent conflict.Gentle conflict is the kind of conflict that the two individuals are debating or competing in a more friendly manner.They may not want to hurt each other but they want to persuade each other to accept their personal ideas.On the other hand,violent conflict may involve verbal discrimination or even armed conflict.This type of conflict arises because the two people have strong opposition towards each other.For both types of conflicts,one of the main cause would be misunderstanding or miscommunication.
When I was in China,there used to be a conflict between two of my classmates.It was a few days before final examination.At that time,everybody was doing revision in the classroom.Suddenly the two classmates started cursing each other,followed by a violent fight between two of them.After realizing the severity of the case,all the other classmates managed to pull them away and cease the "fire".By asking both of them we knew the reason of the conflict.One of the classmate undeliberately elbowed the other who was writing something.Since everyone was so stressful in preparing examination,it became very hard to control their emotions.The person who was elbowed became very irritated and started shouting to his deskmate.His deskmate,who initially prepared to apologize for his unintentional fault,was irritated by his rude manner as well and shouted back.They then felt so angry that they fighted with each other.
You may think that it is too ridiculous for people to have a conflict just because of such tiny issue,but this is actually true in our daily life.In fact,we may resolve such conflict by avoiding misunderstanding and miscommunication.First of all,we have to listen to the other person's explaination if his or her thoughts or actions oppose our will.Secondly,try to maintain a good attitude in communication.As university students,we should learn to control our emotions.Lastly,always think at the angle of others.This helps us to better understand each other and prevent possible conflict from asring.
On the whole,by conducting effective communication and improving emotion-management skills, we can resolve,or at least mitigate the effects of any possible conflict in our life.
In order to resolve interpersonal conflict,we have to understand the root of the conflict.I would like to categorize conflict into two types--gentle conflict and violent conflict.Gentle conflict is the kind of conflict that the two individuals are debating or competing in a more friendly manner.They may not want to hurt each other but they want to persuade each other to accept their personal ideas.On the other hand,violent conflict may involve verbal discrimination or even armed conflict.This type of conflict arises because the two people have strong opposition towards each other.For both types of conflicts,one of the main cause would be misunderstanding or miscommunication.
When I was in China,there used to be a conflict between two of my classmates.It was a few days before final examination.At that time,everybody was doing revision in the classroom.Suddenly the two classmates started cursing each other,followed by a violent fight between two of them.After realizing the severity of the case,all the other classmates managed to pull them away and cease the "fire".By asking both of them we knew the reason of the conflict.One of the classmate undeliberately elbowed the other who was writing something.Since everyone was so stressful in preparing examination,it became very hard to control their emotions.The person who was elbowed became very irritated and started shouting to his deskmate.His deskmate,who initially prepared to apologize for his unintentional fault,was irritated by his rude manner as well and shouted back.They then felt so angry that they fighted with each other.
You may think that it is too ridiculous for people to have a conflict just because of such tiny issue,but this is actually true in our daily life.In fact,we may resolve such conflict by avoiding misunderstanding and miscommunication.First of all,we have to listen to the other person's explaination if his or her thoughts or actions oppose our will.Secondly,try to maintain a good attitude in communication.As university students,we should learn to control our emotions.Lastly,always think at the angle of others.This helps us to better understand each other and prevent possible conflict from asring.
On the whole,by conducting effective communication and improving emotion-management skills, we can resolve,or at least mitigate the effects of any possible conflict in our life.
1/31/2010
Observation: Team behavior regarding intercultural communication
In my previous post I reviewed on the importance of effective communication in teamwork.Today I am going to write about some observation of team behavior regarding intercultural communication.
Culture is a shared pattern among a group of people.These people will behave similarly in the way they live and interpret each other.Culture is a symbol for a specific human society.People of different cultural background may behave differently.This may pose some problem to a team consists of members of different cultural backgrounds.Hence,effective intercultural communication is important in ensuring the success of a team.
On the other hand,lack of knowledge of another culture may lead to embarrassing or amusing mistakes in communication.At the worst,such mistakes may confuse or even offend the people we wish to communicate with,reducing the effectiveness of teamwork.As a Chinese student,I observed that many of my Chinese friends tend to speak Chinese in group discussion if the majority of the team can understand.It may be convenient for them communicate that way but others who cannot understand the language may feel abandoned.In that way,nobody else will know what they think about and the whole team may lose many valuable ideas and suggestions.
Another interesting thing about Chinese people is that they like to be modest.If you ask them whether they want something or not they will probably say they do not want.However,it does not mean they really do not want it,they are just used to behave like that.If you ask them again,they may be very pleased to accept.Hence,if team members want to nominate a Chinese to be the team leader,do ask him or her more times to ensure whether he or she really want to accept the offer or not.
As the world today has become a globalized one,it is usual to have people of different cultural backgrounds together in a team.Therefore,it is important for us to know each other's culture and conducting effective intercultural communication.This in turn helps us to achieve personal as well as team success.
Culture is a shared pattern among a group of people.These people will behave similarly in the way they live and interpret each other.Culture is a symbol for a specific human society.People of different cultural background may behave differently.This may pose some problem to a team consists of members of different cultural backgrounds.Hence,effective intercultural communication is important in ensuring the success of a team.
On the other hand,lack of knowledge of another culture may lead to embarrassing or amusing mistakes in communication.At the worst,such mistakes may confuse or even offend the people we wish to communicate with,reducing the effectiveness of teamwork.As a Chinese student,I observed that many of my Chinese friends tend to speak Chinese in group discussion if the majority of the team can understand.It may be convenient for them communicate that way but others who cannot understand the language may feel abandoned.In that way,nobody else will know what they think about and the whole team may lose many valuable ideas and suggestions.
Another interesting thing about Chinese people is that they like to be modest.If you ask them whether they want something or not they will probably say they do not want.However,it does not mean they really do not want it,they are just used to behave like that.If you ask them again,they may be very pleased to accept.Hence,if team members want to nominate a Chinese to be the team leader,do ask him or her more times to ensure whether he or she really want to accept the offer or not.
As the world today has become a globalized one,it is usual to have people of different cultural backgrounds together in a team.Therefore,it is important for us to know each other's culture and conducting effective intercultural communication.This in turn helps us to achieve personal as well as team success.
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