Self Reflection Sheet

We had been walking for what felt like hours, but in reality it could not have been longer than 30 minutes. We sat down on a bench trying to figure out where we were and where we had gone wrong. It was then that I looked around and fear came over me. I told my husband that he was the only white person I could see. A sense of panic set in and we got up and started walking back in the direction we had come.

There is no question that after giving about four speeches, I have become a much better overall public speaker. In the beginning of the semester, I would tend to get nervous during some of my speeches and consequently the delivery of my speech would be greatly affected. If I had made a mistake, my level of nervousness would drastically increase and I wouldn’t know how to correct it. Although today I have improved on these aspects. Normally in order to control my nerves I try to think as positively as possible. This is critical because when I start to think even a little bit negatively then I severely hurt my chances of giving a good speech. Instead today, my main priority is to stay very confident and tell myself that I’m going to perform fine.

Public speaking used to be a daunting task that I would try to avoid as often as possible, often I would be the last to present a project and would refrain myself from having to read outloud. When I would speak my head would fill with thoughts of how other were perceiving me and how easy it would be to mess up. With this nervous mentality my speaking was stuttered and confusing.

Claudia Stepanovich gave me a message through power point that I completely agree with and that is that public speaking is not a skill you are born with; it is something that you have to learn and get better at. This message spoke to me, because I am extremely nervous about public speaking and I always avoid it when I can; when I can’t avoid it I always get nervous and start to stutter and forget information.

With every group assignment, a possibility of difficulties arise, as dissimilar personalities and work ethics merge together. One of the greatest challenges I have experienced with group work is the even distribution of roles and responsibilities. Each group tends to have at least one member who takes on more roles and one who tends to slack off. To prevent this from occurring, we will set out our

In this Memo, I wanted to highlight some key points in regards to the group work that we will be performing in the incoming weeks. Everybody has specific strengths and weaknesses, and hopefully this will allow us to recognize specific strengths and weaknesses, along with any possible concerns.

These group members were Stephanie Seetoo, JasAndra Acros and Bethany Leung. We figured that there would be the most information if we chose to write about diplomat Townsend Harris (as well as Townsend Harris High School) and unanimously decided that this topic would be the best direction for our track to go into. I privately thought that this “creative writing” piece was going to be very uncreative and so I proposed that we could write from the points of view of different people that were affected by Townsend Harris’s actions. They all thankfully agreed that it would be a more interesting approach. Since a lot of the information for our characters was unknown, I was able to make a lot of creative while still realistic backgrounds to my writing piece. From then on, I had a very positive and optimistic view on the assignment and was eager to work on it and complete it with my group members. The only concern I had at that point was worrying about if my group members would do their fair share of the work. It turns out that an advantage to going to a school like Townsend Harris High School is that pretty much everyone is a good and reliable student in a group project. Together, my group and I created deadlines for our parts to be completed and managed to meet these deadlines easily. The creative aspect really helped me to feel motivated to do

Working in this group was a positive situation. I got along with all of them, and I talked to two more people that I probably would not have

This writing assignment was second to the last of all four in-class writing assignments for us after Essay 2, the group research paper. Our task was to respond with our feedback on how working together as a group was for this essay. Despite not being graded, there was so much more I had to say on it, since I was grateful for having great group members and great teamwork. I was pretty confused still on individual part instructions, so I reached out to my group members in a group chat, seeking for guidance. If it wasn’t for them, I wouldn’t have been able to complete my portion of the research paper.

I felt much internal conflict throughout this project, and occasionally felt guilty, as in the case where we rewrote much of the work submitted by a group member who did not have as much experience in writing as the others did. We had scheduled a time to meet and edit the paper, to which she did not show. However, I allowed my personal need to excel overrule the possibility to mentor and assist a newer student in her learning. Instead of redoing the work, we could have tried again to touch base with the other group member, or, if unable to accomplish this, we should have explained the rationale for the changes, and asked her opinion on the changes instead of redoing it. Additionally, perhaps we could have been more flexible in allowing her to choose times for meetings, as she was having difficulties attending scheduled meetings. This project provided an excellent opportunity of learning for all, and I feel I did not respond in an appropriate

Public speaking can be very stressful, regardless of the many techniques out there to assist in calming your nerves. I think that every “first time” is a failure to me. If I’m starting a new class, leading a certain briefing, or addressing new people, I will always walk away with the feeling I could have done better. However, with that way of thinking I feel like it has pushed me to do better and I still use this to continue to show improvement. The first briefing I did as a young soldier to my superior command was almost too overwhelming. I found that after a few minutes it immediately got easier. I now use this experience to assist myself in current situations. I can become very nervous due to the fact that I’m competitive in everything

In this forum, will be addressing the important concepts learned about groups. Will be describing my personal experience working with my assigned group for this course. Furthermore, will be addressing the main three concepts learned through the duration of this course. Those concepts are tribulation, integrity, and team.

Your chest is tight and you feel like you’re on fire. Your chest is tight ant you’re burning up. The flash cards in your hands are crumpled from you squeezing them obsessively. You look up and see dozens of eyes staring at you, waiting expectantly. Taking a deep breath, you stumble through the speech. When it’s finally over, you practically run back to your seat, cheeks flaming bright red. You slump down, already dreading the next time you’ll have to deal with your upmost fear: public speaking.

The things I will have done differently in the group was to use my time wisely. I believe because we were on a time frame, I tended to rush things just to say okay where done. Also, more support and trust at a point of time I was kind of second guessing another idea. I feel that you have to have trust in your group member to make it effective.

During this activity Sasha and Jaleesa emerged as the group leaders. They both were very helpful in answering any question that anyone in the group was confused on. Also, during the group activity I acted extremely friendly and welcoming. I also made sure I was actively listening and giving all of my group member excellent good eye contact. As for my group members, they all acted very similar to the way I was reacting. In addition, some of the group member were extremely informative and really helped me understand the whole concept of the group proposal. Furthermore, throughout the group activity did one thing that made me proud and one thing that made unhappy. One thing that the group members did that made me proud was when everybody shared a meaningful reason to why choose their specific book. Moreover, one thing that made me unhappy about the group was that we were missing two members in the group. This made me unhappy because I don’t want any of the group members to be lost or confused.