Picture taken from Qinxian!
I'm not even sure if i have anything positive to take away from OP2, from what i observed of myself during the presentation, it seemed to me like i made a mess of the presentation.
One of the things i felt i did wrong was that i did not practice my script properly, not only did this make me look bad, it also made my teammate Qinxian look bad too. There were times where he did not when to click out my slides and i had to prompt him to progress in my presentation,i felt that this oversight on my part affected the smoothness and connectedness of my presentation. I had recorded my speech into the speech cards which i held in my hands, but i thought that i had enough confidence to deliver my speech, hence i did not refer to the cards at all. This was an extremely regrettable mistake on my part because i had forgotten about teamwork, which was that Qinxian needed me to stick to my arranged speech so as to cue me in as planned.
Moreover, there were times where i was looking around at my audience, without saying anything, I'm not sure what i was trying to do then, but i remember looking at certain members of the audience and then having to stifle the urge to laugh. Well, not only did this create a awkward break in my presentation, it also made me look unprofessional as well.
Even the Q&A session was not very well done in my opinion, maybe because most of the questions asked were directed towards nuclear energy, so i felt i had to answer them, therefore i felt i was 'dominating' the segment. I should not have dived into every question so fast, instead i should have waited and look for visual clues from my teammates to see if they would like to tackle the question as well.
Perhaps the only plus side to the presentation was my body posture, i made an effort to me more conscious about how i stood and how i were holding my hands throughout the presentation. I did not slouch or lean on one foot and i made sure that my hands were not 'loose' so as to project a professional etiquette.
This presentation was really a wake up call for me, learning and translating what is learnt is process that will probably take time and repeated reflections to improve, and from what i feel about my presentation, that is much much more to improve on. :(
Hi Jeremy,
ReplyDeleteI guess you need not feel too negative about your speech as I feel it is not exactly a mess like you mentioned. The lack of coordination, I believe, is due to the lack of a proper team rehearsal which could be attributed to our plan. I think in the future, we need to finish our slides earlier and set aside at least a week to practise. Perhaps we focussed too much on the slides and neglected the practice part. Hence, I feel this presentation gives us an invaluable lesson of not assuming things will turn out well without proper preparation.
Regarding the question and answer part, I think you need not feel bad about ‘dominating’. We need to provide clear and accurate information and since our audience are concerned about nuclear energy, I feel it is important that you replied since you have done a lot of research on it and have clearer details than the rest.
Furthermore, in my opinion, you did not look too unprofessional. As the audience is mostly our peers, sometimes there would be a tendency to laugh when there is eye contact. At least, you controlled your laughter and I think the pause could be helpful in catching the audience’s attention. In fact, I think your body posture and speech is something that I can learn from as it conceals nervousness well, if there is any. Perhaps, you could have made better use of the cue cards since you were already holding them.
Overall, I think you have put in a good effort to present well and I hope you would not be too discouraged.
Jian Hwee
Hey Jeremy,
ReplyDeleteAfter reading your post, it seems like you are being quite harsh on yourself! In my opinion, your team did not do such a bad job at all! I thought that each of you certainly possess different positive traits that we could all learn from such as your professional posture and body language! It was impressive that you were able to give a smooth flowing and thorough speech without referring to your cue cards. This shows that you were familiar enough with the content to explain the points to the audience readily! But it’s a pity that it affected your coordination with Qin Xian so it shows that we must be more mindful as our every action has an impact on our team mates as well. The team probably lacked the preparation aspect most importantly, else you could have excelled!
As for the Q&A, your team was able to tackle the questions well and all of you managed to contribute relevant answers and supported each other well. I thought it was fine that you answered the questions quite promptly as you might already know the approach to tackle the question. Perhaps when you actually stepped back and waited for your team mates to answer, awkward pause might have resulted as they might also be waiting for you to answer them since the questions were related to nuclear energy so don’t feel that you were ‘dominating’.:)
I agree that all of us have something to take away from this round of presentation as there will always be room for improvement! Hope that you can rectify your concerns and nail your presentation the next time round! All the best for your Oral Defence!
Cheers,
Win Yee
Hi Jeremy,
ReplyDeleteI don't think you're doing yourself justice by criticizing yourself so harshly. There were several plus points to your presentation. For example, you seemed rather comfortable during your presentation and I think this allowed you to bring your point across better. You also seemed pretty comfortable with the subject matter at hand, so that worked in your favor. I also felt that you did a good job bringing across some rather heavy subject matter in a simple and accessible way, without getting too bogged down by the technical details. This made your part of the presentation seem informative and coherent.
However, I agree with you about the co-ordination with Qinxian and the slides. It did not look good that you had to remind him to move to the next slide. Even worse, the interruption disrupted the flow of your presentation and distracted the audience from the content of your presentation. I myself learned that cue cards are not necessarily the best options since they tend to become distractions during the presentation.
I don't think you should feel bad about the Q&A session since most of the questions were directed at your part of the content. Perhaps next time you could wait a few seconds to give others a chance to answer.
I think on the whole, it wasn't your best presentation, and there is definitely room for improvement, but I didn't think your speech was nearly as bad as your post makes it out to be.
Cheers,
Abhinav
Dear Jeremy,
ReplyDeleteI think you are being rather pessimistic. There were many points to thumb-up in your presentation.
Firstly, I was quite impressed by the large quantity of knowledge you threw to us :D. This shows that you and your team mates had done some really thorough research prior to the presentation. Yet, what impressed me even more was the fact that you were able to deliver your speech so confidently without looking at your cue cards. This means you had gone through your speech many times in order to memorize the points.
Secondly, as compared to OP1, you have made a great improvement on the body gesture and eye-contact with the audience.
Thirdly, I don't think you were "dominating" the Q&A part. That you could answered the questions promptly and confidently means you were really familiar with and knowledgeable about the topic. This only gave you plus points :)
The only think I didn't like in your speech is that you seemed to lose your sense of humor in the OP1. This was probably because of your role as a scientist this time. However, I believe you did a really fine job. Take pride in yourself. And may luck be with you during our oral defense :D
Cheers,
Frank
Hi Jeremy!
ReplyDeleteDo not be too hard to yourself. I am sure no matter how bad you think your presentation was, there is always a silver lining that can be taken especially as a learning point. Because I believe that we learn from everything we do :)
Regarding your performance, I think you did quite well. Like you have mentioned, you managed to keep your posture during the presentation. I am sure it was not an easy thing to do. However, I have to agree with you that during your presentation, you seemed to not have a good coordination with Qinxian. Most of the times, your slides did not really show what you were saying. They were either ahead of you or sometimes behind. I did not really find this disturbing though, instead what I found disturbing was your gesture when telling Qinxian what to do or when to click. I feel that it would be better if you just went on with your speech and let Qinxian followed you. I am sure he would be able to adjust just fine.
I agree that you were sort of ‘dominating’ the Q&A session. Maybe next time you should learn to be more patient instead of just bluntly answer all the questions. Anyway, life is about learning. Thus, I believe that as long as you have realized your mistakes you will be able to learn from them and improve yourself.
Regards,
Christabel
Hi Jeremy,
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, the topic which your group has presented is one of the biggest problems which the world is going to face in the near future. In my opinion I think you did a commendable job but overall your group didn’t perform up to the potential. To be honest even my group didn’t present to our potential.
The primary reason for both of our group’s failure is lack of practice. To be honest my group thought of having a rehearsal before the actual presentation but unfortunately we couldn’t have it and I thought my group did a big blunder by not having one and as a result we paid the price for it in our presentation.
Secondly, though the presentation was lengthy, I came to know that your group has done a lot of research on the topic which I could see it from the slides and I think it is very important for an effective presentation. My group faced the same situation during our Oral presentation 1 as the presentation was too long and as a result we failed to attract the audience because of that. So, it is a lesson for all of us and we should make sure we don’t extend the presentation beyond the stipulated time.
I agree with you that because of lack of rehearsals and practice both the groups faced a similar problem namely inconsistency between the presenter and the clicker and I am sure it would have surely distracted the audience to a certain extent.
Nevertheless, we can overcome our negatives and become an effective presenter in the near future. All the best for the Oral defense!!
Regards,
Santhosh