The Preparation
Expectations rose after we had done rather well in the peer teaching session. We were further stressed to produce an extraordinary oral presentation after Brad listed out what he had expected of us. I still remember that he had mentioned we are the focus rather than the slides, this really drilled into my brain. Being the last group to present had also added on to the presentation standard, i can say that the groups before us did really well. Of course the journey to prepare the oral presentation was brain intensive as we want to give our best for the last shot.
The first question that came to our mind is "how do we create something out of the box that will trigger the audience's mind with relation to our life skills topic?" As usual, our creative director, Jiwei brought in his experience from all his previous presentation ideas. One of his preliminary ideas that we had decided to embed in is how to connect nine dots (lined up in a square) with four straight lines without lifting the pen from the paper. We thought all the ideas we have embedded in would really create an 'out of the box' presentation. However, after sitting through the other group's presentation, we realised that we had focus too much on the presentation itself and not the content. I guess we were carried away to make our presentation stand out so we decided to focus more on the content. This traced back to our main objective of the presentation that is to convince the audience of our proposal.
By working as a team, i learnt valuable communication skills when we need to accomodate each other's schedule for project meetings. I can say my project mates were very understanding towards each other when we had tests ongoing and hence would avoid conducting meetings before the test date. Most importantly, i have learnt how to work more efficiently when we usually spend a productive 2 hours preparing and rehearsing the whole presentation. Many thanks to Xiuling and Jiwei, i really learnt a lot from them.
The Presentation
I can say that my presentation started off with a 'big bang' as proclaimed by the people sitting right in front as my voice was too loud relative to Xiuling's presentation. I initially thought they were laughing at something else perhaps my facial expression when i tried to smile. To my surprise, it was actually that my voice was too loud and this had given a shock to the people sitting in front. I apologised for that and i will improve on this, that is to coordinate the tone of my voice with my team members. Frankly speaking, i was quite nervous at the start and my way of reducing the anxiety is to project my voice out loud. This would actually remove the fear in me. ( Jiwei, this could be a suggestion for you to reduce your nervousness)
I was quite pleased when Jiwei noticed that i had stopped saying the words 'actually' repeatedly during the presentations. This is really an improvement from my peer teaching sessions. I guess this is due to the amount of preparation i had put in so that i am familiar about what to say and not hesitate by saying 'actually'. This was also due to the increased in self-awareness during presentations so that i would not have this bad habit of saying 'ok' or 'actually'. I should also give credit to the amount of interaction i was exposed to in classes, that is to practise speaking distinctly. Hence i am glad that i have achieved one of the most important outcomes of the course that is to communicate professionally.
I am glad that our group presentation turned out to be smooth sailing and the project is finally over. I can say i have picked up a lot of positive attributes from this project be it writing the proposal or giving the oral presentation. Once again, i would like to thank my project mates, Xiuling and Jiwei for the great work together!
Expectations rose after we had done rather well in the peer teaching session. We were further stressed to produce an extraordinary oral presentation after Brad listed out what he had expected of us. I still remember that he had mentioned we are the focus rather than the slides, this really drilled into my brain. Being the last group to present had also added on to the presentation standard, i can say that the groups before us did really well. Of course the journey to prepare the oral presentation was brain intensive as we want to give our best for the last shot.
The first question that came to our mind is "how do we create something out of the box that will trigger the audience's mind with relation to our life skills topic?" As usual, our creative director, Jiwei brought in his experience from all his previous presentation ideas. One of his preliminary ideas that we had decided to embed in is how to connect nine dots (lined up in a square) with four straight lines without lifting the pen from the paper. We thought all the ideas we have embedded in would really create an 'out of the box' presentation. However, after sitting through the other group's presentation, we realised that we had focus too much on the presentation itself and not the content. I guess we were carried away to make our presentation stand out so we decided to focus more on the content. This traced back to our main objective of the presentation that is to convince the audience of our proposal.
By working as a team, i learnt valuable communication skills when we need to accomodate each other's schedule for project meetings. I can say my project mates were very understanding towards each other when we had tests ongoing and hence would avoid conducting meetings before the test date. Most importantly, i have learnt how to work more efficiently when we usually spend a productive 2 hours preparing and rehearsing the whole presentation. Many thanks to Xiuling and Jiwei, i really learnt a lot from them.
The Presentation
I can say that my presentation started off with a 'big bang' as proclaimed by the people sitting right in front as my voice was too loud relative to Xiuling's presentation. I initially thought they were laughing at something else perhaps my facial expression when i tried to smile. To my surprise, it was actually that my voice was too loud and this had given a shock to the people sitting in front. I apologised for that and i will improve on this, that is to coordinate the tone of my voice with my team members. Frankly speaking, i was quite nervous at the start and my way of reducing the anxiety is to project my voice out loud. This would actually remove the fear in me. ( Jiwei, this could be a suggestion for you to reduce your nervousness)
I was quite pleased when Jiwei noticed that i had stopped saying the words 'actually' repeatedly during the presentations. This is really an improvement from my peer teaching sessions. I guess this is due to the amount of preparation i had put in so that i am familiar about what to say and not hesitate by saying 'actually'. This was also due to the increased in self-awareness during presentations so that i would not have this bad habit of saying 'ok' or 'actually'. I should also give credit to the amount of interaction i was exposed to in classes, that is to practise speaking distinctly. Hence i am glad that i have achieved one of the most important outcomes of the course that is to communicate professionally.
I am glad that our group presentation turned out to be smooth sailing and the project is finally over. I can say i have picked up a lot of positive attributes from this project be it writing the proposal or giving the oral presentation. Once again, i would like to thank my project mates, Xiuling and Jiwei for the great work together!
Hey Zikai,
ReplyDeleteGood job on the presentation, as I have mentioned on my blog, it's amazing how much you have improved since the peer teaching. =)
Don't worry too much about the volume of your speech, (I am quite sure that) by default, you don't speak that loudly during presentations. My guess is that was just a one-off event.
The presentation experiences that you have gained in this module will largely change the way you plan and make presentations in future.
Btw, I am really grateful that you don't mind coming to school for group meetings. (I know that its REEEEAAALLLYYY far for you)
Cheers,
Ji Wei
Hi Zikai,
ReplyDeleteI thought you had really good projection and pace! I could not tell that you were nervous at all. I enjoyed your part of the presentation very much.
In your presentation, you gave relevant clarification and explanation of the suggested proposal. Because of your projection, you managed to capture the audience's attention. Although the initial transition gave quite a few of us a huge shock, I felt that it actually worked pretty much as a wake up call to those who had drifted away. You seemed really enthusiastic about your proposed ideas and it somehow influenced me to want to know more about your proposal. Your speech is very clear and concised.
However, at certain parts of your presentation, you had relatively too much unnecessary gestures which could be a bit distracting.
In all, I felt that you gave a presentation that was exceeding expection.
See you on the 3rd at Brad's place!
Regards,
Kesleen
Hello Zi Kai,
ReplyDeleteIf I must describe your presentation in one word, that word would be “BOOMZ”, literally. You had excellent voice projection and clear enunciation, making it very easy to understand what you are saying. Furthermore, I like the way you stood forward closer to the audience, resulting in this great stage presence where all the attention would be diverted to you instead of the screen.
Another thing that I liked was how you described the venn diagram in detail instead of merely flashing the slide and assuming the audience would understand what you are trying to convey. That particular slide has stuck in mind up till now because of that and at the end of the presentation, you even did a recap and linked it back to the venn diagram again.
The only complaint that I have is, you might want to think of idiot-proof ways to make your explanation as simple as possible. If I’m not wrong, you are in charge of explaining the life-skills modules to the audience. Judging by the flurry of questions that followed, I think many in the audience (including me) are still not entirely sure about it. But not to worry, I think all 3 of you did well in the Q and A to clear up any misconceptions.
So I would like to applaud you for a wonderfully confident presentation. Thank you for the hard work and I hope my comments help!
By the way, the answer to embedded lesson regarding the 4 straight lines is to draw an arrow.
Cheers
Russell
Hi Zi Kai,
ReplyDeleteI would say that your presentation style is quite different from Xiu Ling and Ji Wei. They are more confidence and convincing while you are more friendly and full of smile. Audiences can feel your sincerity from your smile and this makes the whole presentation very comfortable.
I noticed that you have many unnecessary body language when you first came to the presentation, but you corrected it soon after getting use to the presentation.
In addition, as what Kesleen mentioned, you have very good voice projection. You spoke very clearly and it allowed you to transmit the information to your audiences very easily.
Moreover, the flow of your presentation was smooth. You maintained good eye contact with your audiences as well.
However, I don't quite understand about the suggestions you mentioned in the presentation. I can see from the Q&A session that others are not clear too. Maybe like what you said, you should focus more on content, especially the suggestions next time.
Good job, Zi Kai! =)
This is an impressive post, Zikai, showing in detail how much you learned through the presentation process. Thanks for the hard work! I'll be passing my commentary to you soon.
ReplyDeleteCheers :)
To all,
ReplyDeleteThank you for all the insightful compliments. I really appreciate it =). I shall also improve on my shortcomings such as what Zhi Peng has mentioned, i could possibly explain my idea better to the audience during the presentations. Perhaps i can provide a summary to give the audience a better picture of what i want them to know after presenting my part. These tips will be useful for me in future presentations.