Critical Reflection

Module Learning: 

Before learning of this module, I was not very confident with my writing or communication skills at all. As an international student, my English is not as good as native speakers. However, everything changes after I completed this critical thinking and communicating module. I really had a memorable and meaningful experience and made great progress on both my oral and writing skills.  

At the start of the trimester, I participated in the “ice breaking” session during the first lesson and met some new friends. I got to know about my teammates and understand the importance of teamwork. Moreover, I also improved my writing skills after the experience of “Reader Response Writing”. I learned to decide a topic by using AI tools in a proper way and doing appropriate citations for different resources. I also struggle a lot to learn how to write a university standard technical report. I spent time collecting information related to a specific engineering topic. Although I realized that I lack language skills and vocabulary, I overcame the challenges with the help of my teammates and professors. I learnt to form the structure of a formal report and became manageable to do primary research and second research.  

This module provided me with a lot of opportunities to communicate with people and learn from them. The professor shared many interesting stories and experiences with us. On the other hand, he offered plenty of useful resources such as websites and articles to deepen my understanding of critical thinking and communication skills. All the experiences helped me to become more professional in academic writing and presentations. I appreciate this module to make me a more confident person and I will try my best to apply the knowledge learnt in my future study or career journey.  

Project Learning: 

I took the role as a secretary in my team and recorded the process and conclusion of our group meetings. I learnt how to listen to others carefully about their ideas and combine them together to determine a solution. Before our team project presentation, my teammates helped me a lot not only with the editing of slides but also with the oral skills of presentation. I prepared to give an attractive attention grabber and interesting presentation with the use of the presentation skills learnt in class. My teammates also encouraged me to express myself and that made me become more confident to speak to the audience.  

After finishing this project with these fantastic teammates, I was able to understand my limitations from the feedback of both the professor and classmates. I will practice and improve my communication skills and try to share my personal thoughts with others more in the future.