Group 4 Reflection Essay

Group 4 project was an interesting learning experience. It forced me to work with people that I haven’t worked with before, take into account our team’s different opinions and make the most out of what we had. We started out with an idea, water suspended on a table without a cup, that we spent a whole meeting on, before we realized that it was not possible to do it, which left us with two meetings to decide what we were going to do. I was then unable to make the two next meetings, and this caused major planning problems, which were reflected during our presentation, added to the fact that I did not talk enough with my team members about what we were going to do, which left our whole group pretty much clueless on our actual presentation. Added to this, we all had different ideas about what we wanted to do with the paper helicopter, what size should it be, how we were going to present it, which led to arguments on the day of the presentation. I am usually stubborn, and it is hard to make me change my mind when I am set in a direction, but we finally managed to come to a compromise which satisfied everyone. From this, I learned that my idea is not necessarily the only working solution, and that there isn’t always one solution to a problem, although better planning and better communication could have avoided such problem on the actual presentation day. Regarding the actual presentation, it was obvious that our planning was not very good. Some material was missing, and we had to run around last minute to gather what was left. My teammates were stressing out because they weren’t ready at all, but being used to doing things last minute, I think that managed pretty well to take charge of the group project to get what was needed and to lead the actual presentation, which surprised me. I am not a very good public speakers, in fact I don’t like standing in front of a class and talking, but I found that during this project, not only was I not afraid of going up, but I actually enjoyed it. I learned that when I put as much effort as I can into something, especially something that I like, my fear of public speaking actually goes away and all the hard work that we put into this project, even last minute, comes out and makes something that can be regarded as good. We did have trouble managing the presentation though, as soon as the class started making their own paper helicopters, it was really hard to get them focused again. Our whole team understood that, and instead we instinctively broke up into small groups to try and help everyone achieve the final design. To me, my overall opinion of our presentation is that although we lacked preparation, we ended up doing something good. What I learned from this experience is that I am not limited to what I have done in the past. Taking over the presentation was something that really surprised me, and although I know that I talked a bit too much, I am glad that it happened that way, as it showed me that public speaking can actually be one strength instead of my weakness.