Step 3: 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)

For both the process of preparing and delivering, there are 2 things I learned that I thought were valuable for me.
When I am preparing, I learned that rehersals are essential for getting ready for a presentation. Before I took this course, I never did any rehersals because I always finished preparing just before the presentation date; which is what happened in Presentation 1 and 2. By doing rehersals, I was able to gain confidence in myself as I was addressing the message to the audience because I had the outline of the contents in my mind. It was a feeling I had hardly experienced in presentations. So I figured rehersals are fundamentals in presentations. The second thing I thought was valuable was asking people for suggestions about the contents in the presentation. When I did presentations, I always thought of what to say by myself and did not ask other people. But for this presentation, with the fact that it was a group presentation, my group members gave me advice and suggestions for my script. It improved my script a lot and I realized how the presentation can become a lot better with other people's opinions. From this, I also was able to give advice to the group members too. As a result, we were able to make a great presentation by helping each other. What I also learned from this is that I can use this method on single presentations too. Even though I am alone, I have the opportunity to ask for advice and feedbacks to strengthen my presentation and I am going to take advantage of that.
For the process of delivering, I learned that being confident is prominent in addressing the message. After Marc had introduced the TED website, (as well as the video of Steve Jobs and also the video of an example of a bad presentation by an American college student) I watched many presenters to see if I can see any common techniques they used. As a result, I came up with the fact that the good presenters all had confidence in themselves. For example, like Brian Greene from TED, (he is an expert in his field so it is pretty obvious that he has confidence but anyways) he does not use a script and looks completely confident in his self; that is why I thought his presentation was so interesting even though I had little knowledge about his topic. However unlike Greene, Steve Jobs uses a script and looks at it most of the time in his speech. But you can see that his words are powerful and is successfully delivering the message to the audience. I figured that this is from confidence; and in my future presentations, I want to say to myself as I am delivering the speech-Have confidence in yourself. The second thing I learned is to think about what I am going to say next as I present the material. Marc mentioned this point to the class in one of the last classes and it left a deep impression on me. As I said before, I did not have the outline of the topic so I had to read the script throughout the presentation. So if I have the outline in my head, I would be able to deliver my message smoothly without studdering. Moreover, I realized that this point is connected to having confidence in yourself. By remembering the outline of the presentation, I will be able to gain confindence in myself because there is no need to worry about getting stuck at what you want to say next; therefore I will be able to address the message with power and successfully deliver the message.
From now on, I am going to keep these four valuable points in my mind to make a powerful presentation.



b) In what presentation skill areas do you feel you have made progress or improved your awareness? (2 or more)

After finishing this course, I took time to think about my presentation skills (including slides, body language, and contents) before and after this AEP course. From my own observation, I think I have made progress in mainly 3 things.
The first improvement was my introduction skills. My favorite part of presentations had been the introduction even before I took this course. I had always been trying to think of a catchy introduction to get the audience's attention. Even though I did not mention this in my goals, it was something wanted to improve throughout the course. Since I (and also everyone else I think) think that the introduction is the part where you get nervous the most, I wanted to stay calm and cleary state my "catchy" introduction; which I was struggling to do before. But I was able to accomplish this in my last presentation from experience and practice in the AEP course. In addition, with Marc's tip on introduction (about including the outline and purpose of the presentation), my introduction improved even more!!
The second improvement was my body language. In my first presentation, I kept looking at the screen, moving my legs and arms, and smiling which was very distracting. Therefore, I could not use eye contact and hand gestures to successfully deliver my message. But by the last presentation, I was able to keep still and not even look at the screen and script as much as before. This enabled me to emphasize my points and keep the audience concentrated on my presentation without being disturbed by my unneccessary body languages.
The third improvement was I was able to prepare on time with enough time for rehersal and practice. Everytime I was assigned a presentation, I finished preparing the day before so I could not practice; and because of that, there was no room for emphasis. However, as for my last presentation, with the help of my group members, I finished on time to memorize the outline and practice the presentation to gain confidence in myself.
Therefore, in my opinion, I especially improved in these three points; I will be aware of these valuable points in the future and make sure I will improve even more as I experience more and more presentations.



c) What points do you want to improve further in your future presentations? How can you improve those? (2 or more)

Well, I would want to improve everything!!!
But if I were to choose, I would like to further improve these three points in my future presentations: Introduction and conclusion, preparation time, and skills on how to speak effectively.
As I have been saying, the introduction, and also the conclusion as well are the most essential part in the presentation. The introduction is needed to catch attention and the conclusion is needed to emphasize your main points in the end to leave an impression for the audience. Therefore, I feel I need to further improve these to make my presentation stronger and powerful. To do this, I need to practice alot beforehand to make sure the two points are easy to understand and powerful enough to leave impression.
Next, preparation time. Even though I have been saying alot of things,none of these would be possible without preparation. My preparation time has drastically changed after taking the AEP course. However, I feel it is still inadequate. More practice and more preparation time=a better presentation. To do this, it is VERY VERY important to start as early as possible. Hence, I will start preparing eariler for improvement.
Finally, I would want to further improve my speaking skills. Even if I prepared well, it would be meaningless if I could not successfully deliver the message; this is where speaking skills come in. Although I still do not completely know why, I think that Brian Greene is a spetacular speaker with a lot of power. To be like him, I will need to discover the secrets and the methods used by great speakers by watching different speakers while are doing their presentations. So I would like to keep watching TED and other websites to learn how to be a GREAT SPEAKER.