Reflective Journal

The term reflection generally refers to the process where an individual evaluates an
event or experience to arrive to a deeper understanding of an incident or surrounding
issues. (Mcmillan&Weyers, 2013)

In this journal I will describe my self-reflection experience which I had it this term at
University, based on Gibbs (1988) reflective cycle.

I am currently an adult student at Roehampton University in Birmingham were I am

studying Management degree .In second term , for my English class the assignment
was to be part of a group and all together to deliver a presentation as per
requirements provided by lecturer.Finding and creating the group was not
hard,however working together was. We were 5 people in the group and as many
different ideas. As I was the group leader I had to take thedecisions, to what and
how the presentation will look like as all the others did not had any ideas or
suggestions from where to start and where to finish.

I had to choose the topic for our presentation .I organised the group and split the
tasks for them. We had to do the meetings at the school library as all of us were
working and sometimes to stay after classes to continue working for the
project.During the entire period prior presentation I felt very angry because always at
the meetings there was one or two team members missing, pushing the rest of us to
do their part as well. After a few meetings we started to have a direction and the
presentation was starting to have a shape; however, with this the disagreements
were stronger , as Daynes and Farris (2003) said , by not dealing with situations
immediately and personally, the situation can be made worse.

With this in mind many times I had to step forward to show all team members what
they need to do and many were the occasions when I had to be an ambassador and
keep all of us together and focus on the presentation.

We manage to finish the presentation in time , however we did not had time to
practice and even more one of the key team members could not attend the
presentation and that infused even more tension in the group and the stress
levelrapidly increase as all happened with a few hours before our group
presentation.

The slides which I prepared were very good and I believe I covered and discuss the
topic well.

During the presentation I was emotional and I was unable to articulate my

wordscoherently, I was nervous and almost I forgot what I need to say,I did not had
any eye contact however, I did not used my hands to show my slides and to have a
better connection with the audience .I believe I had all of those feeling because this
was the first time when I had to perform in front of an audience and that why my lack
of confidence and the bad performance. The group colleagues were understanding,
as they are all mature students, however I am not sure about the lecturer opinion
about my presentation.

The rest of the group I consider did well, they were not as emotional as I was maybe
they had previous experiences, or they had more time to prepare for the presentation
.I was surprised in a nice manner by their performance.

In general the presentation was good, however I would do a few thinks in a different
way. I should have asked the group to choose the subject for presentation together. I
should have pushed the group to work more intensively and finally I should have
allocate more time to practice the presentation.

In future, I will make sure I have a better connection with my team members. I am
taking every chance to speak in front of the class so I can get used with the
presence of the audience. I am will enrol to take some extra classes for
pronunciation as well. This group presentation help me to see my lack of confidence
in presentations with an audience however, by following the action plan my
performance can be improved.

Reference list:

Daynes, J. & Farris, M.M. (2013). The Manager-Employee Relationship. Oxford:

Oxfordian Books Ltd.

Gibbs G (1988) Learning by Doing: A guide to teaching and learning methods.

Oxford: Further Education Unit. Oxford Polytechnic.

Kathleen McMillan and Jonathan Weyers (2013).How to improve critical thinking &
reflective skills.Harlow:Prentice Hall