End of module - critical reflection

Before embarking on this module, I thought that I was already proficient in communicating effectively and thinking critically and that there would be limited learning opportunities, however, this assumption was quickly overturned as the breadth and width of knowledge this subject had to offer far exceeded my expectations.

My team and I were tasked with giving a pitch about the product and our suggested enhancements to improve the product. We decided to continue my initial research into prosthetics eventually settling on the Bebionic hand as our base product before researching the current capabilities, limitations, and what could be further improved upon or added according to user reviews found online.  

Once satisfied with the information gathered, we prepared slides to aid our sales pitch to make it more visually appealing and gain their attention. The slides acted as a way to show our suggested improvements, how they work, and how they could positively improve users' lives. I started script writing to have an outline of how the slides should be arranged to help the narrative. I followed the pointers discussed in class about starting with an attention grabber, keeping the points short and succinct to retain the attention span of the people we were pitching to, and, finally a call to action to make the listeners feel personally involved. A trial presentation was conducted 1 week before our actual presentation in which our professor and classmates gave feedback and allowed us to improve. The feedback was that it was information-dense and lacked conciseness. This insight allowed me to adjust the slides and script to improve the pitch. I memorized the key points of my part of the presentation to give the presentation confidently and did further research on the topic in case the audience had questions during the Q&A.

The adjustments made following the feedback received during the mock pitch helped me immensely as during the presentation I felt confident and implemented whatever I had learned in the weeks prior. After receiving feedback from my professor,  I received an A for the presentation, and that the comments he had for me were generally good with exceptions to my pacing and vocabulary. Through this experience, I learned many pointers on what makes a good presentation, such as how the slides should exploit the recency bias effect and what I want them to take away from my pitch. During my research, I  learned how to use the CRAAP method to distinguish between credible and non-credible sources and use them to support my claims. The APA citation method was also one of my key takeaways from this module as I had yet to use APA formatting when writing documents. In the future, the knowledge gained will be invaluable for writing my capstone report.

As the module nears its conclusion, I am confident that my capabilities in critical thinking and effective communication have improved, especially with the integration of the Pual Elder critical thinking framework and the diverse methods of communication such as the recency bias effect.