Reflection on my learning in AEP

a) What are the most valuable things you learned about the process of preparing and delivering presentations? (2 or more)
There are two most valuable things I learned about the process of preparing. First is how to make effective slides. When I did a presentation in ELP class last semester, I had no idea how to make effective slides. I tended to include a lot of keywords in one slide which made audience focus on only slides. In this class, I could learn how to pick effective pictures which have a big impact and how to show them effectively. I always want to remember that the audience will get what I want to say from my words not from slides. Second is the importance of rehearsals. I learned through three presentations I did that practicing well enough until memorizing most of script and having confidence can make a big difference in presentations. Last presentation, I couldn't memorize my script well enough and I was shocked to know how it made difference in terms of having eye contacts and the speed of my voice. At the same time, I could learn form the third presentation that doing rehearsals many times until I have 100% confidence is really essential for giving a good presentation.
There are three most valuable things I leaned about delivering my presentation. First is the importance of making effective body languages such as gestures and eye contacts. Honestly, I learned a lot about body languages and I could practice a lot of them in classes. It was such a great opportunity for me since it will be hard for me to practice them in particular in the future. Second is having passion. By doing 3 presentations, I leaned in order to deliver my messages, it's always important to have a strong passion. That will lead me to have eye contacts with the audience more and emphasize the keywords naturally. Third is the importance of repeating keywords. I learned that in oral presentations, it's important to have audience actually remember the keywords at the end by repeating them.

b) In what presentation skill areas do you feel you have made progress or improved your awareness? (2 or more)
I think I have made progress mainly in two presentation skills.First is an introduction skill. By analyzing TED videos and learning in class I gained a lot of skills preparing for good introduction to catch audience's attention. I tended to wonder how to introduce my main points of the presentation and how to make my audience interested in my presentation. I will always keep ATCP in mind when making my introduction. Second is my body language skill. By watching my videos I have a confidence that I made a improvement on my body gestures. Before I focused only on my contents and I really didn't pay attention to my body languages. However, in three presentation I did in classes, I could set the clear goals for my gestures each time and that helped me improve a lot on my body languages such as eye contacts and gestures. Also while it's kind of embarrassing to see myself presenting in the video, first thing I noticed was that I did nervous gestures a lot which makes me look less confident. I have been trying to avoid them and I think I successfully achieved my goal.


c) What points do you want to improve further in your future presentations? How can you improve those? (2 or more)
There are 2 points I want to improve in my future presentations.
First area is preparation for the academic topic. When dealing with a serious topic such as my last presentation I found myself tend to read the script rather than using my own words. To avoid this, I need to fully understand what are the main points I want to insist especially when my topic is academic and to have enough time practicing until I can describe with my own words without looking my script. This will lead me to have enough confidence and to have eye contacts with each one of audience. So in the future, when I deal with academic topic, my goal will be to spend a lot of time on practicing rather than spending all my time on preparing my script.
Second is Q&A skills. This class was my first one where I learned the formal way of Q&A. Although I've done two presentations with that skills, I tend to forget to confirm questions. I definitely need to have more experiences with Q&A in my future presentations and master it!

Presentation No.3

Reflection as a group
a) The process of preparation and rehearsal
Me, Lisa, Kohei spent enough time on preparing for this presentation. We got together several times and discussed how to reduce contradiction and make out presentation strongly persuasive one. We finally could do the rehearsal on the day of our presentation twice. We could have done that more but since it took about 30 min, I think it was enough in limited preparation time.
b) The effectiveness of the introduction
Kohei did a great job on introduction catching audience's attention by asking interesting question about their teenage life connecting the serious issue of AIDS.
c) The persuasiveness and organization of the content in the body
We spent a lot of time organizing out contents. Since there are a lot of information about out campaign, it was hard to pick up points which we wanted to introduce and organize them. As a result, we could make our contents connect to the main purpose of our presentation. Overall it was persuasive enough to let audience know the seriousness of AIDS and the fact that our campaign desperately needs donation.
d) The conclusion and Q&A
Lisa gave audience really dramatic conclusion which contains the strong messages. I love how our presentation was closed by her conclusion and I think that summarized our points.
Q&A overall I think we could do good following what we leaned in class. Although the first question was really technical one, we could do our best to answer it. For the second one we could have researched more on that point and even contained to out presentation because it could be a very good point to persuasive a millionaire.
e) Use of visuals
I have a strong confidence on our visuals. We learned a lot from Mark's class about visuals and I think this one was our culmination! Effective pictures which has a big impact, graphs, key words... Every slide help our presentation become persuasive one.
f) Body language: Eye contact, facial expression, gestures, and posture
We could have done more eye contacts for sure. Reading our script made it harder for us to have eye contacts. But we did our best to have eye contacts with each audience when we are not reading the script. Facial expression was good. Unlike last two presentations we try to make our presentation serious so our serious expressions were suitable fore our contents.
g) Use of voice
Our voice volume was pretty appropriate, not too big and not too small. Everyone speaks really clearly but I think me and Lisa talked a bit too fast ...:( However all of us could use pause effectively so that was good!
h) Other points (as you like)
We misunderstood each other on time keeping which led me and Lisa talk much faster than rehearsals. After watching our presentation video I thought not showing the campaign video and having more time to present on each person could have been another option.

Reflection of myself
a) The process of preparation and rehearsal
I spent long enough time to organize my contents and prepare my slides. Since I took more time than I planned to decide which points I would include and to finish making my script, I couldn't have enough time to memorize all my script. So I should have done deciding what I was going to say in earlier place and spent more time on memorizing my script.
b) The effectiveness of the introduction
Kohei did a great job on introduction catching audience's attention by asking interesting question about their teenage life.
c) The persuasiveness and organization of the content in the body
4P that I introduced was much more complicated thing. But for this presentation I tried to make it easy to understand so that audience wouldn't get confused.( While preparing I got confused and frustrated so many times!) By simplifying my contents I think I could make them more persuasive. Only regret is that I should have done the research on Mark's question and add it to my contents.
d) The conclusion and Q&A
About Q&A. I still have regret that I couldn't answer well on Mark's question. While preparing my part, I had the same interest as Mark and try to find out how much money our campaign try to collect by donation but I couldn't find the exact number and also I couldn't make sure that the number was reliable or not. Only thing I was sure is that our goal of donation is more than one million. We should have researched more on that point and contained to out presentation because it can be a very good point to persuasive a millionaire. But Q&A overall I think I could do good following what I leaned in class.
e) Use of visuals
While making my slides I kept in mind all things I learned in this class. The skill of fining an effective picture and use in slides instead of explaining by words is definitely what I gained in this class:) And for the first time I(we) put citation on each slide which made our data looked reliable.
f) Body language: Eye contact, facial expression, gestures, and posture
As I mentioned above, since I read script much more than last two presentations, there were less eye contacts. Since it was the first time for me to come up with my script, in this presentation, I learned the importance of memorizing the script as much as possible and having eye contacts. Also I noticed that reading a script made me talk much faster than I thought !!!!:( "Trying to do without a scrip" will always be my goal for the future presentations. I really want to try to give the presentation again after I have a confidence to give my presentation without a script. I couldn't smile because of our serious topic so I'm wondering if my facial expression was too serious or not. I'm satisfied with my gestures and posture.
g) Use of voice
Since we tried to be serious, my voice was really low compared to my last two presentations which makes my voice to have less variable I think. However, I could use pause effectively which was the goal I set from my last presentation. I really really should have talked more slowly.
h) Other points (as you like)
Although there were points we could have improved, I'm satisfied with the presentation me,Lisa, Kohei did! I think we could achieve the goal to persuade a millionaire and deliver our messages with an organized contents. I'm so happy that I could work on my last presentation with them! Thank you:)