Now that this project is complete, there are lots of feelings that come about regarding it. From a pure engagement point of view, I actually feel that it is the most engaged I have been for a presentation/project. I believe this is due to the fact that I had a partner that was actually passionate in working on the project as much as I was. It was not a one-sided effort, which made things a lot more motivating and engaging to get things done. From a process point of view, I feel like me an Isaac nailed it. Very early on we created a rough outline of things we wanted to speak on, then slowly developed/practiced those ideas over the following weeks. By the time we got to speech time, it really just felt like another rehearsal/second hand. One thing I discovered is that I quite enjoy the instructional/visual aspect of public speaking. Often time, reading off a script I have memorized in my head can be quite hard. Having the visual there allowed me to express my knowledge on the bench press in a much more fluid/knowledgeable way. One struggle I had was pre-speech nerves. Even though we were the most practiced for the speech on that day as we ever were, I had some anxieties that made me think I would mess the whole thing up. Anyway, it didn’t. Overall, this speech was very successful and I believe portrayed me and Isaacs efforts into it nicely.
Throughout this speech, I felt more engaged and prepared than in the previous speech, partly due to the accountability of working with a partner. Knowing that we both had to practice to refine our speech helped me with procrastination and keeping track of the progress we made. Creating the outline was also easier this time because I had a clear goal and structure in mind, which made organizing my points more straightforward. One intentional change I made was choosing to sit during the presentation in order to reduce the swaying and unnecessary movement that I tend to do when standing. Hopefully, this small adjustment helped the audience stay more focused on our explanations rather than any distracting movements. However, I still struggled with projecting my voice enough and used filler words more than I would have liked. A challenge I faced was an unexpected last minute change in our speaking order. Tim wanted to take over discussing the positions at a poker table, which I had practiced for since he was more familiar with it. While it made sense, it threw me off slightly because the change made was during the break before we had to present. Even minor changes so close to presentation time can impact my confidence, so I need to work on adapting more quickly in these situations.
Now that we are done with our speech two, I feel as though I have grown a lot just from these past three weeks. To begin with Skyler and I were very stuck on what exactly to do our speech about. Once we decided on the topic of showing the class how to braid hair, Skyler and I got to work making our rough outline. I really enjoyed how the three classes were broken with our drafts and then final project. One thing that was the biggest struggle was being able to find time with Skyler to be able to get the work done together. Another struggle was getting up in front of the class three classes in a row. I also really enjoyed the feedback we got both times we did test runs of our speeches; it allowed us to adjust our speeches based on the people who are seeing it from the audience point of view.
Journal #11 Journal reflection as a whole
Now that you’ve finished the project, what can you say about your engagement, process discoveries, struggles and success along the way?
Word Count: 357
This project for me, at least, not sure how other people perceived it, but I loved it so much, I was able to actually teach people a skill that I think I am very good at. I thought that it was a great way to incorporate a partner in as well. Although there were some bumps in the road. Communication was rough, as there was some lack of motivation in the beginning that made it rough on both of our sides. I also had a lack of confidence in the beginning about my skill, a large fear of judgment as well from the crowd. But the motivation grew as we were making the PowerPoint, and actually getting into the teaching part, and not just describing what we are dong. Some discoveries along the way that I found was looking out for my weaknesses along the way, as well as my partners. My weakness was definitely the confidence aspect, and not having that motivation because of it. My partner lacked a bit of the motivation along with time management. As we both have jobs it made it hard to meet up to actually practice together and it would tend to happen toward the day of the presentation.
Even with all of these struggles, I’m very proud of how our final project outcome. That last week, I made sure Kiley and I had superficially times and dates where we would meet up in Decary and practice our speech, and help each other out on what to say. I am also very happy about the prop idea I had, and that everyone actually through the dough around. Like what!! I was not expecting people to actually do the hands on activity and it made me so happy to see that. I also made sure to hype myself up before the presentation, really saying that confidence is key. I loved the critic part of this project, it helped me especially really know what people wanted out of the presentation. A big part was mumbling, and the confidence. I feel like I did a lot better with that this round. Thank you!
Overall I think Brooke and I worked well together. We both made contributions to our project and were able to delegate well together. We have both known how to braid hair for a long time, but I personally had never really taught anyone how to braid. Teaching something that is just second nature to me was difficult. It was hard to figure out how to put the steps into words since when I braid my hands just know what to do. I feel like our project progressed well because each week we had something to focus on that was due for the next class, rather than having to do it all in one week. It was nice to be able to watch the dry run we did because it really showed me what I should work on when I probably would have never noticed unless I saw it from a different perspective. Something that we struggled on throughout this was finding a time each week that worked for both of us. We both work and have busy class schedules so when one of us was free, the other usually was not. However, with this we managed to compromise and fit time into our day to meet.
Looking back on this experience, I wish I had done more, especially since I wasn’t as pleased with how much I stuttered in the final speech. But I have realized that it is something that is a part of me and something that is a part of me that I will need to learn to work with and improve at over time. Summarizing the speech was likely the toughest thing to do for us because there was so much that we needed to say and because the material was so heavy. Getting a good balance between attempting to fit everything in and not making the speech too long was tricky to accomplish. On these challenging circumstances, including illness and snow, I’m really pleased with what we were able to do. It was less than ideal, but we worked around it and were still capable of presenting a meaningful and coherent presentation. There was a useful lesson to be learned from this ordeal, and I found merit in the preparation, improvisation, and poise under pressure. In the future, I know better the areas where I can be improved, and I will take these lessons with me to future speeches.
6 thoughts on “JOURNAL # 11”
Now that this project is complete, there are lots of feelings that come about regarding it. From a pure engagement point of view, I actually feel that it is the most engaged I have been for a presentation/project. I believe this is due to the fact that I had a partner that was actually passionate in working on the project as much as I was. It was not a one-sided effort, which made things a lot more motivating and engaging to get things done. From a process point of view, I feel like me an Isaac nailed it. Very early on we created a rough outline of things we wanted to speak on, then slowly developed/practiced those ideas over the following weeks. By the time we got to speech time, it really just felt like another rehearsal/second hand. One thing I discovered is that I quite enjoy the instructional/visual aspect of public speaking. Often time, reading off a script I have memorized in my head can be quite hard. Having the visual there allowed me to express my knowledge on the bench press in a much more fluid/knowledgeable way. One struggle I had was pre-speech nerves. Even though we were the most practiced for the speech on that day as we ever were, I had some anxieties that made me think I would mess the whole thing up. Anyway, it didn’t. Overall, this speech was very successful and I believe portrayed me and Isaacs efforts into it nicely.
Throughout this speech, I felt more engaged and prepared than in the previous speech, partly due to the accountability of working with a partner. Knowing that we both had to practice to refine our speech helped me with procrastination and keeping track of the progress we made. Creating the outline was also easier this time because I had a clear goal and structure in mind, which made organizing my points more straightforward. One intentional change I made was choosing to sit during the presentation in order to reduce the swaying and unnecessary movement that I tend to do when standing. Hopefully, this small adjustment helped the audience stay more focused on our explanations rather than any distracting movements. However, I still struggled with projecting my voice enough and used filler words more than I would have liked. A challenge I faced was an unexpected last minute change in our speaking order. Tim wanted to take over discussing the positions at a poker table, which I had practiced for since he was more familiar with it. While it made sense, it threw me off slightly because the change made was during the break before we had to present. Even minor changes so close to presentation time can impact my confidence, so I need to work on adapting more quickly in these situations.
Now that we are done with our speech two, I feel as though I have grown a lot just from these past three weeks. To begin with Skyler and I were very stuck on what exactly to do our speech about. Once we decided on the topic of showing the class how to braid hair, Skyler and I got to work making our rough outline. I really enjoyed how the three classes were broken with our drafts and then final project. One thing that was the biggest struggle was being able to find time with Skyler to be able to get the work done together. Another struggle was getting up in front of the class three classes in a row. I also really enjoyed the feedback we got both times we did test runs of our speeches; it allowed us to adjust our speeches based on the people who are seeing it from the audience point of view.
Journal #11 Journal reflection as a whole
Now that you’ve finished the project, what can you say about your engagement, process discoveries, struggles and success along the way?
Word Count: 357
This project for me, at least, not sure how other people perceived it, but I loved it so much, I was able to actually teach people a skill that I think I am very good at. I thought that it was a great way to incorporate a partner in as well. Although there were some bumps in the road. Communication was rough, as there was some lack of motivation in the beginning that made it rough on both of our sides. I also had a lack of confidence in the beginning about my skill, a large fear of judgment as well from the crowd. But the motivation grew as we were making the PowerPoint, and actually getting into the teaching part, and not just describing what we are dong. Some discoveries along the way that I found was looking out for my weaknesses along the way, as well as my partners. My weakness was definitely the confidence aspect, and not having that motivation because of it. My partner lacked a bit of the motivation along with time management. As we both have jobs it made it hard to meet up to actually practice together and it would tend to happen toward the day of the presentation.
Even with all of these struggles, I’m very proud of how our final project outcome. That last week, I made sure Kiley and I had superficially times and dates where we would meet up in Decary and practice our speech, and help each other out on what to say. I am also very happy about the prop idea I had, and that everyone actually through the dough around. Like what!! I was not expecting people to actually do the hands on activity and it made me so happy to see that. I also made sure to hype myself up before the presentation, really saying that confidence is key. I loved the critic part of this project, it helped me especially really know what people wanted out of the presentation. A big part was mumbling, and the confidence. I feel like I did a lot better with that this round. Thank you!
Overall I think Brooke and I worked well together. We both made contributions to our project and were able to delegate well together. We have both known how to braid hair for a long time, but I personally had never really taught anyone how to braid. Teaching something that is just second nature to me was difficult. It was hard to figure out how to put the steps into words since when I braid my hands just know what to do. I feel like our project progressed well because each week we had something to focus on that was due for the next class, rather than having to do it all in one week. It was nice to be able to watch the dry run we did because it really showed me what I should work on when I probably would have never noticed unless I saw it from a different perspective. Something that we struggled on throughout this was finding a time each week that worked for both of us. We both work and have busy class schedules so when one of us was free, the other usually was not. However, with this we managed to compromise and fit time into our day to meet.
Looking back on this experience, I wish I had done more, especially since I wasn’t as pleased with how much I stuttered in the final speech. But I have realized that it is something that is a part of me and something that is a part of me that I will need to learn to work with and improve at over time. Summarizing the speech was likely the toughest thing to do for us because there was so much that we needed to say and because the material was so heavy. Getting a good balance between attempting to fit everything in and not making the speech too long was tricky to accomplish. On these challenging circumstances, including illness and snow, I’m really pleased with what we were able to do. It was less than ideal, but we worked around it and were still capable of presenting a meaningful and coherent presentation. There was a useful lesson to be learned from this ordeal, and I found merit in the preparation, improvisation, and poise under pressure. In the future, I know better the areas where I can be improved, and I will take these lessons with me to future speeches.