Patricia Gonzalez- Reflection 2

 

Dear Class,

              This second public speaking assignment turned out significantly better in every way. Even though the first one surprised us with well-crafted performances, this one is undoubtedly leading the ranking. “Elections Matter” was the topic for this presentation, each group tackled controversial themes surrounding the national vote, among which we can mention education policies, gender equality, immigration, and the election process.

   Diving into such important issues helped us get more involved with our own words, ensuring the right message reached the audience. This greater engagement in our work —from collecting data from various credible sources to interviewing important figures in each field—yielded awesome results. In this second reflection, my goal is to cover each group, analyzing their performance and highlighting positive aspects and in need of improvement areas so let’s begin.

This time, Group 4—my group—came up first. The topic we covered was Education policies. We divided the work using the subtopics given by the professor, such as research devoted to our subject and contributions from it. We also focused on American vs. world perspectives as well as Local and national associations, and organizations involved. Lastly, we provided a historical overview of education policies and opinions obtained from interviews with people directly involved in the area such as teachers. As for the creative part, our slides turned out really good, we didn’t overload them with too much information instead, we played with keywords, colors, and catching images like graphs. Even though we did not use it for the in-class presentation, it is worth mentioning the brochure we also had to create, I believe this was a great way to wrap up the essentials of our speeches in just one visually appealing sheet.

brochure

 Overall, I think this second performance as a group culminated successfully, we learned from our previous mistakes and used them to build an even better version of our project, this time addressing such an important topic as a Nation’s Elections.

Next was Group 3, discussing their topic about The Electoral Process and all the key elements surrounding the elections. I liked how the first speaker focused on explaining the basics to the audience, covering the two different parties and their beliefs as well as how the voting process works, this smart start engaged the viewers right away because, from my point of view, the moment you start by giving some easy-to-process information it sets an important context to the viewer enhancing their understanding and preparing them for the consequent data coming from other teammates. Throughout the presentation, I noticed good communication skills and their job managing the timing made their speeches very dynamic also. A detail I think deserves appreciation and congratulations is how well they managed the theme. Compared to the other topics, the electoral process is not as controversial and ever-changing, which might give the audience a sense of predictability and indifference, impressions that work against you even before you begin. However, the energy and creativity they displayed throughout the presentation left no room for boredom. Overall. great job by the entire team, keep it up!

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    A couple of days after Group 3’s presentation, it was the turn of Group 2. They did a great job; The topic they explored was Gender Equality, with each member presenting a different aspect of it. I remember the first two girls gave impressive speeches about a very important and controversial subject such as abortion. They both implemented professional positions addressing both the pro-life and pro-choice perspectives, defending each with factual real-life data and insightful videos that helped the audience understand the core points of the topic. Two other classmates that stood out to me in this group talked about the role of women in sports. They presented all the information in a well-organized manner, with data from the beginnings of women in sports until this day. Both implemented videos and graphs into their slides, taking advantage of their effectiveness in engaging the viewers. I loved how these two also utilized body language and eye contact techniques while delivering their respective speeches, this detail allowed them to create an impactful presentation, showcasing what they learned from prior experiences and taking advantage of it. In summary, I enjoyed the whole group’s performance, their topic was interesting and left me reflecting on some of the points they discussed. 

    The last group to come up was Group #1. Their topic focused on “Immigration” and in my opinion, they handled it remarkably. Similar to Group 2, they started with a historical overview using a graph with the proper amount of information, which helped the audience get some context on the area. Subsequently, the following facts unfolded smoothly. I want to highlight that even though it’s a rich and broad theme, they used the right amount of key information to get the audience’s attention without confusing them. This was one of the only groups that utilized close-person interviews. One of the group members engaged directly with an immigrant, asking insightful questions that added a significant touch to their work. The perspectives gained through this person’s experiences immersed us into the challenges immigrants face every day. They also covered both the liberal and conservative viewpoints, ensuring all sides of the debate were represented. On the other hand, their slides were visually appealing, they used nice matching colors, keeping harmony between each slide. Overall, I would like to congratulate this group, their performance was admirable.

            To conclude this second reflection on each team’s presentation, I would like to underscore that I did notice an evolution from the previous works, this time each group came up front bearing much more confidence, some of them even quit the cards and started talking to the crowd as truly professional public speakers. Every effort invested in the research was worthwhile. Thanks to this second reflection blog, I analyzed each team’s work, helping me identify the strengths and weaknesses. This necessary movement will help us improve our next projects and make them memorable to all attendees.