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Alicia Wang

Professor Lynda Haas

Writing 39B

8 June 2014

The Final Reflection Essay

When I was registering up for module units, I was reluctant to undertake Crafting your Masters

Study module course unit. I knew it was unavoidable, but I was not an efficient scholarly writer, researcher

and speaker who could stand up to the basic skills that are essential in this module. I had no knowledge in

writing academic papers, my confidence to give a presentation or defend a scientific project proposals was

so wanting. I had the idea not to pursue something that could expose my weakness to my classmates as it

could be an embarrassment to my esteem. However, to the contrast during this period I gained a lot skills

which are applied in master’s studies. During this period I have learned on how to improve my critical

reflection on issues, this reflective practice involved training in critical writing, reading and thinking, I

learned the critical reading strategies such as contextualizing, questioning to understand and remember,

previewing outlining and summarizing. I gained technical skills used to perform searches like sifting results

by domain, file type or date. In this way I can explore a range of sources, including web pages, journal

articles, e books and subjects experts. Other technique on the same I gained was finding up to date

information from subject experts is by following them in social spaces like Twitter. This activities are key

in academic study in masters level as it really important to understand how to judge the quality of material I

will be using in writing my thesis. I learned the different information found on web such as blogs and wikis

and how to evaluate them whether they are valuable to me or not. I have learned how to search credible

academic sources, the different types of referencing and bibliography and how to site sources .I learned the

two research methodology, their content how to collect data, what a good data entails and how to use

statistical techniques to manipulate data. I learned how to create a PowerPoint and capture an audience’s

attention. I learned the importance of peer review, and teamwork. Lastly, I have learned the importance of

reflection and learning from my mistakes and my strengths. These skills did not come from just

memorization. I studied these techniques from practicing them on a weekly basis. I practiced how to read

and interpret scholarly text, how to work as a team to accomplish group projects, how to edit and revise
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essays, how to analyze text in all forms, and how to write an academic essay All of these new skills are

abilities that I will practice in my future courses.

In the beginning of the course everyone was asked to deliver a short introduction in front of the

class. This task was important because it not only introduces the skill of public speaking but also the

decision making process of choosing fellow teammates in a group. The goal is to have someone remember

you and want you to be in his or her group. I took a new approach on my introduction and instead of just

writing about the present moment and who I am, I also wrote down what I wanted to be. I practiced the

habit of mind, openness, and did not realize it until now. I based part of my biography on whom I wanted to

become because my goals and what I hope to achieve are an indication of my strengths and weaknesses. I

wrote an introduction, practiced and practiced in front of my friends until even they could deliver my

speech. Prepared and ready, I stood in front of the class, and forgot my entire speech. I rushed through the

bits and pieces that I did remembered and rushed back to my seat. I knew public speaking is something I

needed to practice but after my introduction, I knew I really needed to improve. I was one of the last picked

for group members and no one seemed to remember my name.

The class’s first blog assignment was to write about our speech and a habit of mind. At the time I

chose engagement, the habit of putting in time and effort into learning. However, I also was persistent in

my learning. I have slowly but surely developed my public speaking skills and level upped my ability to

stand in front of an audience. Through practice and feedback from my classmates, I have used every

presentation opportunity to speak and smooth out the bumps in my speeches. I continued to learn more and

more about how I can improve and now I enjoy speaking in public. I was determined to work on my public

speaking skills, and recently I spoke with confidence at the RIP Seminar in front of about thirty students

and two professors.

I practice my communication skills but I also practiced my team building skills. During week two,

I wrote about responsibility. My team was made up of three other intelligent students and we named

ourselves after one of our teammates. The goal for our team was to make a presentation about medicine and

technology during the Victorian Era. I understand the meaning of responsibility but when there are three

others counting on me to finish a specific part of the project, responsibility is taken onto a whole new level.

Responsibility is not just finishing work on time but it is realizing when I had made a mistake that brought
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up or down the overall quality of the work. Responsibility is standing up for my own work and

understanding when an error has occurred and how to fix the mistake instead of blaming an outside force.

This habit of mind sounds very negative but it also means to me that trusting teammates is important and

when something does go well, we can all say we played a part in the quality of the project. My teammates

and I separated the work by figuring out an equal set of tasks that needed to be completed. We each chose

the tasks we were most interested in and created a shared google doc. With the shared google doc, we set a

due date and trusted everyone to work and finish by the due date. Just like the first initial presentation I

created with my smaller group of four, I created another presentation at the RIP Seminar. This time my

group was made up of seven students, six intelligent students and I worked on a power point with

information on everything we have learned this past quarter. The presentation was not an easy task to

accomplish especially with numerous conflicting schedules. In the seminar, I used teamwork skills and the

habit of mind, flexibility, openness, and responsibility to accomplish the goal of a professional

presentation.

From the RIP Seminar, I learned flexibility. It is not easy to get seven people all in the same room

at the same time, or understanding everyone’s workload to set a doable due date to finish the task. I had to

be flexible with my way of thinking and knowing that because of different due dates, everyone had to finish

or work on the project during their own time. I knew I needed to change my expectations and demands

based on everyone’s personal need. Despite everyone’s heavy workload, we all finished within the time

period by assigning specific jobs for everyone. We had two teams, one team presented and another team

created slides and researched information. I was the team leader and was on both the research team and the

presentation team. I wanted to be on both teams because I was curious about the Watson and Sherlock

convention but I already knew about the background of the Victorian Era. Using the habit of mind

curiosity, I worked with Vanessa and Haeni to explore the convention and become an expert on the topic. I

spoke about the Watson and Sherlock conventions and I researched and created the slides about the cultural

context of the Victorian Era. As a whole, the presentation went well. We all looked and felt professional,

ready, and prepared. I am proud of what I presented. I picked up a few tips from the other class. I learned

the importance of testing technology if I am teaching in a new environment and how asking questions will

keep the audience engaged. The other class used the technique of asking questions and I will use this
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technique in the future. I tried to keep in mind openness during the preparation of the seminar and during

the seminar. I changed and altered the presentation based on the new techniques and ways of thinking my

teammates, classmates, and professor. For example, a classmate suggested to take out a convention and

focus on the details instead of using broad ways of thinking for every and a teammate suggested we

coordinate our slides with the video created by Andy to make his video easier to understand.

The RIP Seminar was a reflection of everything my classmates and I have learned. Most of the

information we absorbed was from texts, via movies, television, short stories, and scholarly articles. After

reading The Sign of the Four by Sir Author Conan Doyle, I read the six scholarly texts in order to write the

Literary Review Essay. This essay contained the voices of different scholars and their opinions on why

Sherlock Holmes was popular during the 19th century I learned to be engaged in what I was learning

because Dr. Haas emphasized how I would use my critical reading skills to write and read research journal

articles. I reread the articles just to gain the best grasp on the concepts and highlighted parts that I could ask

questions about or tie it into something I had learned before. In the end, Dr. Haas, had to explain all the

texts to the class. I knew I did not have the skills yet to fully understand the text because reading critically

is a technique that needs to be practiced. I reflected and knew that despite not having the amount of practice

and experience Dr. Haas had, I still showed areas of improvement. Dr. Haas is very good at reading

critically but I think it is also important to listen to my peers too. I was interested in the conventions and

scholars and because of my curiosity, I paid attention to my peers and what information they had to offer.

Often enough, my peers would suggest an idea that I had not thought of and every new idea continued to

feed my curiosity to learn more and ask questions to the next classmate.

After writing my essay, my group members and I did a peer review session where I was able to get

a fresh set of eyes on my work. I realized the strength in peer review because I gained so many new ideas

from their knowledge and advice, but I was also given writing tips on how I could focus my writing and

add more details instead of creating general concepts in my essays. Peer Review is important because it

allowed me to practice the habit of mind openness, creativity and responsibility. Openness and creativity

allowed me to keep a good mindset to learn from my teammates. Responsibility forced me to give good

feedback too since if I did not give good feedback then I would do a dishonor on another person. Keeping

responsibility in mind, I read critically and made sure that my advice would help the person. For the second
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essay I looked critically at a TV series based on Sherlock Holmes. My classmates and I were given time to

peer review each other’s work and I practiced the habit of mind openness again to improve my essay based

on the peer review. Another person reading into my essay will have a fresh set of eyes and I their advice

really helped. Despite having all the peer review and feedback from Dr. Haas, I decided to reviews my

rhetorical analysis essay.

In the end, I decided to revise my rhetorical analysis essay because it is my weaker essay. This

essay contains an interesting topic with a lot of detailed observation but does not have a clear objective or

overall statement. My greatest strength will be the observations made and written about in the draft but the

greatest weakness will be explaining what the observations mean and clarifying the material. While I will

revise my second essay, I will also revise a paragraph on my Literature Review essay. This paragraph is the

wordiest of all my paragraphs and contains a lot of information that can be shortened and made more

concise. After reading my drafts multiple times, it is hard to work on the habit of mind, persistence. I am

working on new ways to approach my topic in order to keep my enthusiasm for the material. I am not

skilled at writing concise information so I hope this paragraph allows me to practice shortening my writing

and focusing on the main points and the necessary details. The strength in this paragraph will be the amount

of information but the weakness will be the length of the paragraph.

Throughout the quarter, I have learned how to read critically but also how to adapt to new forms

of learning and practicing these new techniques. I will use these skills for not only courses in Psychology

but any course that is academically challenging or requires teamwork. I learned it is important to constantly

practice but also that I have so much room for growth and to continue learning. The habit of mind,

metacognition, can be practiced throughout my life and will help me see where I can better myself and

enhance my ability. I need to practice reading and writing critically, but be open to new ways of learning. I

need to practice team building and leadership skills so I can achieve my goals with the help of others.