Group Meeting Concerning Our Oral Presentation example essay topic

On Tuesday before class started, we had a group meeting concerning our oral presentation. Most of us have met a week earlier to discuss what we were going to talk about during the presentation. We put it together on PowerPoint and quickly went over all the slides. One thing I learned about our group is that some of us tend to shy away when doing presentations in front of the class. Voluntarily I wouldn't go up, depending what the topic is and if I knew much about it. If I prepare for it, I don't mind doing it.

Communication is very important when working in groups. This is what keeps most of them together. Communication wasn't a problem in our group because most of us knew each other. Some of the members I do not usually communicate to because they aren't in my class while a few are. Sometimes when people are communicating, I find that there is a language barrier between us where I might not be sure what they are saying. If this happens, I usually just tell that I didn't catch what they said if and if they can repeat it.

At other times, it can be just my listening skills. Although we didn't have a long meeting, we practiced just reading the slides to each other. Because we each worked on our own part of the presentation, we had to explain to each other what we did and what information we are presenting so that everyone in the group is familiar. During our presentation, one thing I noticed was that none of the members used physical actions to communicate (such as moving of hands and body posture). Someone once said that 60-90% of what you are saying comes from body language and the rest comes out of the mouth. Although this wasn't a big presentation, I believed that body movement might have helped make it more interesting.

I know for myself, if I do a big presentation, I try to move my hands around. When I communicate through emails, I try to be really courteous to my members because something I say, someone else might take it differently. I use a lot of short cuts when I type and sometimes people might not understand what it means. When I emailed two group members that I don't usually talk to online, they kind of had trouble understanding what I was trying to say. To solve that, I just called them up and explained why I chose United Way to give our money to. The rest of the members were ok with email.

The best way for our group to communicate with each other was either in class or through the email system. So far, all team members have participated in most of the meetings and we all did our part to put the presentation together so there was no social loafing going on. When we presented, this was upward communication as this information was going to a higher level which was the professor. I learned that the communication process is very important when working with groups.

It allows each member to give their say and input to the task at hand. Not only is it important in groups, also individually as well such as giving information to your supervisor or to a colleague. I know for myself that when I'm doing a PowerPoint presentation, I tend to not look at the class that much just because I have to look at the slides when I talk. During the next few presentations that I have in all my classes, I will try to look at the audience more often. Making eye contact is very important because it shows the audience that you are interested in them as well as the topic on hand. They will be less bored than they usually are (depending on the topic).

When we present our final presentation, I hope that we will get to see the whole presentation a few days prior because I would to know everything about our presentation and so I can talk and make references to other information if needed.