how to write a group presentation reflection

How to write a Reflection on Group Work Essay

Here are the exact steps you need to follow for a reflection on group work essay.

Explain what Reflection Is
Explore the benefits of group work
Explore the challenges group
Give examples of the benefits and challenges your group faced
Discuss how your group handled your challenges
Discuss what you will do differently next time

Do you have to reflect on how your group work project went?

This is a super common essay that teachers assign. So, let’s have a look at how you can go about writing a superb reflection on your group work project that should get great grades.

The essay structure I outline below takes the funnel approach to essay writing: it starts broad and general, then zooms in on your specific group’s situation.

how to write a reflection on group work essay

Disclaimer: Make sure you check with your teacher to see if this is a good style to use for your essay. Take a draft to your teacher to get their feedback on whether it’s what they’re looking for!

This is a 6-step essay (the 7 th step is editing!). Here’s a general rule for how much depth to go into depending on your word count:

1500 word essay – one paragraph for each step, plus a paragraph each for the introduction and conclusion ;
3000 word essay – two paragraphs for each step, plus a paragraph each for the introduction and conclusion;
300 – 500 word essay – one or two sentences for each step.

Adjust this essay plan depending on your teacher’s requirements and remember to always ask your teacher, a classmate or a professional tutor to review the piece before submitting.

Here’s the steps I’ll outline for you in this advice article:

diagram showing the 6 step funnel approach to essays

Step 1. Explain what ‘Reflection’ Is

You might have heard that you need to define your terms in essays. Well, the most important term in this essay is ‘reflection’.

So, let’s have a look at what reflection is…

Reflection is the process of:

Pausing and looking back at what has just happened; then
Thinking about how you can get better next time.

Reflection is encouraged in most professions because it’s believed that reflection helps you to become better at your job – we could say ‘reflection makes you a better practitioner’.

Think about it: let’s say you did a speech in front of a crowd. Then, you looked at video footage of that speech and realised you said ‘um’ and ‘ah’ too many times. Next time, you’re going to focus on not saying ‘um’ so that you’ll do a better job next time, right?

Well, that’s reflection: thinking about what happened and how you can do better next time.

It’s really important that you do both of the above two points in your essay. You can’t just say what happened. You need to say how you will do better next time in order to get a top grade on this group work reflection essay.

Scholarly Sources to Cite for Step 1

Okay, so you have a good general idea of what reflection is. Now, what scholarly sources should you use when explaining reflection? Below, I’m going to give you two basic sources that would usually be enough for an undergraduate essay. I’ll also suggest two more sources for further reading if you really want to shine!

I recommend these two sources to cite when explaining what reflective practice is and how it occurs. They are two of the central sources on reflective practice:

Describe what happened during the group work process
Explain how you felt during the group work process
Look at the good and bad aspects of the group work process
What were some of the things that got in the way of success? What were some things that helped you succeed?
What could you have done differently to improve the situation?
Action plan. What are you going to do next time to make the group work process better?
What? Explain what happened
So What? Explain what you learned
Now What? What can I do next time to make the group work process better?

Possible Sources:

Bassot, B. (2015). The reflective practice guide: An interdisciplinary approach to critical reflection . Routledge.

Brock, A. (2014). What is reflection and reflective practice?. In The Early Years Reflective Practice Handbook (pp. 25-39). Routledge.

Gibbs, G. (1988) Learning by Doing: A guide to teaching and learning methods . Further Education Unit, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford.

Rolfe, G., Freshwater, D., Jasper, M. (2001). Critical reflection in nursing and the helping professions: a user’s guide. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Extension Sources for Top Students

Now, if you want to go deeper and really show off your knowledge, have a look at these two scholars:

John Dewey – the first major scholar to come up with the idea of reflective practice
Donald Schön – technical rationality, reflection in action vs. reflection on action

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Step 2. Explore the general benefits of group work for learning

Once you have given an explanation of what group work is (and hopefully cited Gibbs, Rolfe, Dewey or Schon), I recommend digging into the benefits of group work for your own learning.

The teacher gave you a group work task for a reason: what is that reason?

You’ll need to explain the reasons group work is beneficial for you. This will show your teacher that you understand what group work is supposed to achieve. Here’s some ideas:

Multiple Perspectives. Group work helps you to see things from other people’s perspectives. If you did the task on your own, you might not have thought of some of the ideas that your team members contributed to the project.
Contribution of Unique Skills. Each team member might have a different set of skills they can bring to the table. You can explain how groups can make the most of different team members’ strengths to make the final contribution as good as it can be. For example, one team member might be good at IT and might be able to put together a strong final presentation, while another member might be a pro at researching using google scholar so they got the task of doing the initial scholarly research.
Improved Communication Skills. Group work projects help you to work on your communication skills. Communication skills required in group work projects include speaking in turn, speaking up when you have ideas, actively listening to other team members’ contributions, and crucially making compromises for the good of the team.
Learn to Manage Workplace Conflict. Lastly, your teachers often assign you group work tasks so you can learn to manage conflict and disagreement. You’ll come across this a whole lot in the workplace, so your teachers want you to have some experience being professional while handling disagreements.

You might be able to add more ideas to this list, or you might just want to select one or two from that list to write about depending on the length requirements for the essay.

Scholarly Sources for Step 3

Make sure you provide citations for these points above. You might want to use google scholar or google books and type in ‘Benefits of group work’ to find some quality scholarly sources to cite.

Step 3. Explore the general challenges group work can cause

Step 3 is the mirror image of Step 2. For this step, explore the challenges posed by group work.

Students are usually pretty good at this step because you can usually think of some aspects of group work that made you anxious or frustrated. Here are a few common challenges that group work causes:

Time Consuming. You need to organize meetups and often can’t move onto the next component of the project until everyone has agree to move on. When working on your own you can just crack on and get it done. So, team work often takes a lot of time and requires significant pre-planning so you don’t miss your submission deadlines!
Learning Style Conflicts. Different people learn in different ways. Some of us like to get everything done at the last minute or are not very meticulous in our writing. Others of us are very organized and detailed and get anxious when things don’t go exactly how we expect. This leads to conflict and frustration in a group work setting.
Free Loaders. Usually in a group work project there’s people who do more work than others. The issue of free loaders is always going to be a challenge in group work, and you can discuss in this section how ensuring individual accountability to the group is a common group work issue.
Communication Breakdown. This is one especially for online students. It’s often the case that you email team members your ideas or to ask them to reply by a deadline and you don’t hear back from them. Regular communication is an important part of group work, yet sometimes your team members will let you down on this part.

As with Step 3, consider adding more points to this list if you need to, or selecting one or two if your essay is only a short one.

8 Pros And Cons Of Group Work At University

You’ll probably find you can cite the same scholarly sources for both steps 2 and 3 because if a source discusses the benefits of group work it’ll probably also discuss the challenges.

Step 4. Explore the specific benefits and challenges your group faced

Step 4 is where you zoom in on your group’s specific challenges. Have a think: what were the issues you really struggled with as a group?

Was one team member absent for a few of the group meetings?
Did the group have to change some deadlines due to lack of time?
Were there any specific disagreements you had to work through?
Did a group member drop out of the group part way through?
Were there any communication break downs?

Feel free to also mention some things your group did really well. Have a think about these examples:

Was one member of the group really good at organizing you all?
Did you make some good professional relationships?
Did a group member help you to see something from an entirely new perspective?
Did working in a group help you to feel like you weren’t lost and alone in the process of completing the group work component of your course?

Here, because you’re talking about your own perspectives, it’s usually okay to use first person language (but check with your teacher). You are also talking about your own point of view so citations might not be quite as necessary, but it’s still a good idea to add in one or two citations – perhaps to the sources you cited in Steps 2 and 3?

Step 5. Discuss how your group managed your challenges

Step 5 is where you can explore how you worked to overcome some of the challenges you mentioned in Step 4.

So, have a think:

Did your group make any changes part way through the project to address some challenges you faced?
Did you set roles or delegate tasks to help ensure the group work process went smoothly?
Did you contact your teacher at any point for advice on how to progress in the group work scenario?
Did you use technology such as Google Docs or Facebook Messenger to help you to collaborate more effectively as a team?

In this step, you should be showing how your team was proactive in reflecting on your group work progress and making changes throughout the process to ensure it ran as smoothly as possible. This act of making little changes throughout the group work process is what’s called ‘Reflection in Action’ (Schön, 2017).

Scholarly Source for Step 5

Schön, D. A. (2017). The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action . Routledge.

Step 6. Conclude by exploring what you will do differently next time

Step 6 is the most important step, and the one far too many students skip. For Step 6, you need to show how you not only reflected on what happened but also are able to use that reflection for personal growth into the future.

This is the heart and soul of your piece: here, you’re tying everything together and showing why reflection is so important!

This is the ‘action plan’ step in Gibbs’ cycle (you might want to cite Gibbs in this section!).

For Step 6, make some suggestions about how (based on your reflection) you now have some takeaway tips that you’ll bring forward to improve your group work skills next time. Here’s some ideas:

Will you work harder next time to set deadlines in advance?
Will you ensure you set clearer group roles next time to ensure the process runs more smoothly?
Will you use a different type of technology (such as Google Docs) to ensure group communication goes more smoothly?
Will you make sure you ask for help from your teacher earlier on in the process when you face challenges?
Will you try harder to see things from everyone’s perspectives so there’s less conflict?

This step will be personalized based upon your own group work challenges and how you felt about the group work process. Even if you think your group worked really well together, I recommend you still come up with one or two ideas for continual improvement. Your teacher will want to see that you used reflection to strive for continual self-improvement.

Scholarly Source for Step 6

Step 7. edit.

Okay, you’ve got the nuts and bolts of the assessment put together now! Next, all you’ve got to do is write up the introduction and conclusion then edit the piece to make sure you keep growing your grades.

Here’s a few important suggestions for this last point:

You should always write your introduction and conclusion last. They will be easier to write now that you’ve completed the main ‘body’ of the essay;
Use my 5-step I.N.T.R.O method to write your introduction;
Use my 5 C’s Conclusion method to write your conclusion;
Use my 5 tips for editing an essay to edit it;
Use the ProWritingAid app to get advice on how to improve your grammar and spelling. Make sure to also use the report on sentence length. It finds sentences that are too long and gives you advice on how to shorten them – such a good strategy for improving evaluative essay quality!
Make sure you contact your teacher and ask for a one-to-one tutorial to go through the piece before submitting. This article only gives general advice, and you might need to make changes based upon the specific essay requirements that your teacher has provided.

That’s it! 7 steps to writing a quality group work reflection essay. I hope you found it useful. If you liked this post and want more clear and specific advice on writing great essays, I recommend signing up to my personal tutor mailing list.

Let’s sum up with those 7 steps one last time:

Explain what ‘Reflection’ Is
Explore the benefits of group work for learning
Explore the challenges of group work for learning
Explore the specific benefits and challenges your group faced
Discuss how your group managed your challenges
Conclude by exploring what you will do differently next time

Chris Drew (PhD)

Dr. Chris Drew is the founder of the Helpful Professor. He holds a PhD in education and has published over 20 articles in scholarly journals. He is the former editor of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education. [Image Descriptor: Photo of Chris]

Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ 5 Top Tips for Succeeding at University
Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ 50 Durable Goods Examples
Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ 100 Consumer Goods Examples
Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ 30 Globalization Pros and Cons

2 thoughts on “How to write a Reflection on Group Work Essay”

Great instructions on writing a reflection essay. I would not change anything.

Thanks so much for your feedback! I really appreciate it. – Chris.

How To Write A Reflection Statement – A Step-By-Step Guide

Do you know how to write a reflection statement? In this post, we give you a clear process for writing reflection statements.

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Do you know how to write a reflection statement? Reflection statements are tasks that will increasingly be part of your assessments. In the past, reflection statements were only set for Extension 2. Now they will be commonplace in Advanced English for both Year 11 and Year 12.

In this post, we will demystify reflection statements and give you a step-by-step guide to producing statements that will impress your teachers!

What is a Reflection Statement?

A reflection statement is a complementary task that will accompany other assessment types. A reflection statement requires students to discuss the process of producing the associated assessment task.

In a reflection statement, students need to explain why they made the decisions they did. The reflection statement also offers the student an opportunity to say what they think they did well, or did poorly. Students can reflect on what they would change if they could do it over.

If you want to learn more about why self-reflection is such an important skill for students, you should read this excellent article by Cathy Costello at Virtual library .

Why can’t you give a specific definition of what reflection tasks involve?

The exact nature of the reflection task will depend on the assessment task you’ve been asked to reflect on. To give you an idea of this, we’ll look at some examples of the tasks that reflection statements might accompany and what the reflection statements need to address.

As you can see, there are a wide variety of tasks where you could be asked to provide an accompanying reflection task.

How long is a reflection statement?

This will vary.

English Extension 2 reflection statements need to be 1500 words. If you’re not doing English Extension 2, it is unlikely that you will be required to produce something that long.

The tasks you will be set for English Advanced will range between 300 and 800 words. Most reflection tasks will be on the shorter side of things at around the 400-word mark.

Need help perfecting your reflections for Module C?

Learn how to write insightful and constructive reflections with our structured online video lessons, quality resources, and forums to ask your Matrix teachers questions and feedback! Learn more about Matrix+ Online Courses now.

how to write a group presentation reflection

Where will I encounter reflection statements?

You will be set reflective statements throughout Years 11 and 12. They can be attached to any assessment task for any Module.

However, due to the nature of the Common Module: Reading to Write it is likely you will be set one to accompany the main writing task for that Module.

Similarly, in Year 12, Common Module: Texts and Human Experience and Module C: The Craft of Writing are the most likely Modules where you will be asked to reflect on your process of composing.

Remember, there is no limit on how many reflections you will need to produce as they supplement a larger assessment task. You may need to write as many as two in both Year 11 and Year 12.

In the HSC English Advanced Paper 2 (from 2019) and HSC English Extension 1 Paper, you may be asked to write a composition and a reflection statement.

If you study English Extension 2, this is a mandatory accompaniment for your major work. (Please note, while the process discussed in this post is similar to the one for producing an Extension 2 reflection statement, it does not discuss the research and referencing components that you need to complete for an Extension 2 work).

Clearly, it is important to be confident writing reflection statements. Matrix students learn how to produce reflection statements and get help refining them.

The secret to producing killer reflection statements is to follow a process when writing them.

What we’ll do now is look at the process for how to produce ace your reflection statement.

How to write a Reflection Statement – a step-by-step guide

Like everything in English, there is a process you can follow to produce a reflection statement. Even though the specific task may vary. The process for writing the reflection will largely remain the same.

The process for writing reflection statements looks like this:

How to Write A Reflection Statement Step-by-Step

Step 1: Produce the main piece of work for the assessment

Reflection statements are never tasks in and of themselves, they supplement the main task. You will not be able to produce your reflection statement until you have completed and edited your main task.

If you are stuck on your main task and need help, you should read our Beginner’s Guide to Acing HSC English for detailed advice on all aspects of Year 11 and 12 English.

This can be useful. You may well discover that your reflection statement makes you reconsider some of your choices in your main task. In the process of writing your reflection statement, you may decide you need to redraft your main work.

This is one of the key purposes of writing a reflection statement. It forces you to consider what you have produced and the process of producing it. This is a key part of editing and improving your work.

Step 2: Read the assessment notification

Once you’ve produced your main piece of work, you need to revisit your assessment notification. A task that involves a reflection statement will come in two sections:

Section 1 will be the instructions for the main task;
Section 2 will be the instructions for the supplementary reflection task.

Rereading the notification is important as it will help you check that you have completed the main task correctly. It will also tell you exactly what you need to do for the second part of the task.

Step 3: Read the marking criteria

For every assessment task that you are given, you MUST be given accompanying marking criteria. Marking criteria are very important. They tell you explicitly what you need to do to get full marks for a specific task.

Reading through the marking criteria at this point serves two purposes:

You can double check that you have addressed all the criteria for a Band 6 result for your main task.
You can see what you need to do to achieve a Band 6 result for your reflection statement.

Your reflection statement may have very different requirements for a Band 6 mark than your main task. It is important that you are aware of the differences.

Step 4: Unpack what the reflection statement needs you to discuss for a Band 6 result

Now you’re familiar with the notification and marking criteria for the assessment task, you need to get these understandings down in writing.

To do this, you need to take a few steps:

Read through the instructions for the task and highlight or underline the keywords (these will usually be the verbs and nouns in the instructions).
Now you want to write these words down and define them. If you are unsure of a what a word means, that’s okay. Look it up. This is how you expand your vocabulary.
Next, do the same for the marking criteria. Underline what you feel are the keywords and terms. Again, write them down and define them.
Now you need to write down what you need to do for a Band 6 result. To do this, write down the instructions in your own words. Include what you need to do for a Band 6 mark in this instruction. Be sure to make note of whether this is meant to be written informally or formally, in the first or third person. You must follow the instruction regarding form for these tasks.

Now you’ve unpacked the question. This means you are now equipped to answer the question you’ve been set.

Next, you need to revisit your main task so you can see what you’ve done and evaluate how you’ve put it together.

Step 5: Reread what you have produced for your main task

Your reflection statement will require you to explain the choices you’ve made in your main composition.

You may not have thought too much about these things when you produced the work. And this is fine. It just doesn’t help you with the reflections statement.

If this is you, you need to read your work with an eye on how you have conveyed information. You must unpack how you have presented your ideas. Essentially, you need to reverse engineer your writing through textual analysis.

Some useful questions to ask yourself when doing this are:

How does my work address the assessment instructions and marking criteria?
What am I trying to convey here?
How does this part of my work address the marking criteria?
What technique have I used to convey meaning?
Why have I used that technique?
Could I have conveyed this idea differently? Would this have been more effective? Why?

Make notes while you do this. You want to be able to refer back to your findings in detail when you write the reflection statement.

Once you’ve finished this, you’re ready to start planning. By now you should have:

A detailed breakdown of what your task requires you to discuss in your reflection statement and how to discuss it.
A detailed set of notes about the piece you have produced for the main task.

Step 6: Plan your reflection statement

As with any task, you want to plan things before you get stuck in. Planning your work forces you to consider what information you must include and how you will structure that information in your response. This is an important part of the critical thinking process.

Reflection statements need to have structure, too.

You need to ensure that you introduce your ideas clearly, then expand on them, and, finally, summarise and conclude your statement. Even if you only need to produce a 250-word paragraph, you still need to ensure that it follows the conventions of composition structure. You will lose marks for presenting idea soup.

To plan your response, you’ll need to get your notes on the task and your notes on your response together. Then:

Read through your notes on the question. Remind yourself what you need to discuss in your reflection statement.
Write down what you will discuss in your reflection statement.
Now you need to think about what parts of your main task you will discuss. To do this, refer to your notes about your main task. Ask yourself, “which parts of my task are most relevant to what the task is asking me to discuss?”
Note down what you think will be the order for presenting your reflection. For example, you may want to start with your structural decisions before discussing your use of techniques or you may want to discuss your influences before discussing your ideas.

Once you’ve got your plan together, you’re ready to write. Matrix students get advice on their assessment tasks from their Matrix Tutors and Teachers. It might be helpful to ask a peer or parent for their thoughts if your school teacher can’t provide advice.

Step 7: Write your introductory statement

The length of your introduction will be contingent on the specifics of your task:

If your reflection statement is less than 400 words, you will need to produce one or two sentences.
If you are writing a longer reflection statement of more than 400 words, you will need to write a short introduction.
If you are producing an Extension 2 reflection statement, this will need to be a longer and more detailed introductory paragraph.

When writing your introduction, you must:

Introduce the topic you will discuss;
Explain how this reflects on the work that you are discussing;
Make reference to the Module you are studying.

Once you have produced your introduction, you are now ready to develop your discussion and discuss the specifics of your main piece of work.

Step 8: Write the body of your argument

Now you’ve introduced your subject matter you need to start presenting an argument. Even though you are reflecting on your own work, you still need to use examples to demonstrate how you’ve set about responding to the main task.

You will need to present several examples to support your argument, but the number of examples will vary depending on the length of the task you’ve been set.

For a shorter reflection, try to present two or three examples and discuss them in detail. If you need to produce several paragraphs, you should be aiming at around four per paragraph.

To do this:

Introduce the idea you were trying to convey (this might be an influence on your work, a technique you’ve tried to use, or a theme you’ve tried to explore).
Present an example of this idea.
Explain how you have attempted to use or explore this idea.
Explain how this addresses the instructions and marking criteria for the task.
Explain how this is relevant to the Module you are studying.
Comment on other choices you could have made and why you didn’t use the other option.
Repeat this for each example that you need to support your point.

Once you’ve done this, you need to conclude your reflection.

Step 9: Write your concluding statement

Your final statement needs to address the broad idea you have discussed in your response. It will need to be at least two sentences. A longer reflection will require a longer concluding statement; if you had a separate introduction you will require a separate conclusion.

To write your concluding statement:

Summarise the key ideas that you have discussed.
Make a statement about what you have taken away from your study of the Module and the process of producing this task and reflecting on it.

Now you need to revise what you’ve written.

Step 10: Proof and edit your work

It is really important that you proof and edit your work before submitting. You don’t want to throw away marks on typos and unnecessary grammatical errors. Proofing your work is something you must do after you finish any task.

To proof your reflection statement:

Reread your summary of the notification of the task and the marking criteria.
Read your reflection statement aloud.
Whenever you encounter a mistake or a sentence that sounds ungrammatical, correct it.
Pay attention to the logic of your argument. Does it make sense?
Ask yourself, have I addressed the instructions for the task?
Ask yourself, have I addressed the marking criteria for a Band 6 response.
Redraft your reflection statement in its entirety. Don’t submit your first draft. Your second draft will always be better.

If you would like to know more about the editing process, you should read Part 7 of our Beginner’s Guide to Acing HSC English: How to Edit Your Work .

Now you’ve finished a second draft you can submit. If you can, you should try and get some feedback. Matrix students get regular feedback from their Matrix Tutors and Teachers. Feedback on your work allows you to take somebody else’s perspective and use it to improve your marks.

Written by Matrix English Team

© Matrix Education and www.matrix.edu.au, 2023. Unauthorised use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Matrix Education and www.matrix.edu.au with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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Charlie’s Blog

Just another university of brighton blog network site.

A reflection on my experience of working in a group

Introduction – The project that I have been involved in was to make a presentation for our chosen company to review their current digital marketing campaign and to make recommendations on how to improve it. The company that we chose was The Bok Shop, “a free-range and vegan fried chicken joint” (The Book Shop, 2017). They have three locations with their first and main restaurant being located in Brighton, viewable in the photo below and if you click the integrated link on the photo it will take you to their website.

History on The Bok Shop, (The Book Shop, 2017)

Planning and Organisation – Firstly, my group arranged an online meeting to discuss the task at hand, as well as identifying any key segments that we would need to include in our presentation. We planned out how and when we should set takes completed by and decided that we should have meetings every so often to ensure progress was being made.

Process – Our process was to gradually complete our slides dividend between us in our early meetings of the group work. When finding any useful sources, we would share these within a document to increase our productivity. The way we did this was via Microsoft Teams, I created a group where we could communicate, share documents and work on the presentation together.

Involvement and Collaboration – Regrettably, I believe that the involvement and collaboration from the other members of my group were not up to an acceptable standard. Although everyone eventually finished their part of the presentation, this required me constantly chasing them up on when they will be doing this work, and why no additional progress had been made. On top of this, not only did I need to complete my part of the presentation but I had to start helping other members and completing slides for them while they work on the other parts that they were allocated. I am not sure whether this was down to a lack of motivation, for example, the other members not reaching the self-actualisation step in the Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs pyramid in this project and therefore not having the motivation to fully involve themselves with this project or explore their creative side (McLeod, 2020). However, this helped me learn some strong group leadership skills, by being able to manage when the project is not going to plan and being able to get it back on track.

Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs (McLeod, 2020)

Conclusion – In conclusion, working on this group presentation has taught me and expanded my skills when working within a group, that could help further my employability opportunities. Not only am I more confident in taking control of a poor situation and turning it around, but I am more confident in speaking in groups and presenting something I have created and practised. As well as this, I have learnt that I would start sooner after getting the assignment, compared to later on to ensure that my issues would have time to be resolved.

References:

Thebokshop.com. 2017. The Book Shop . [online] Available at: < https://www.thebokshop.com/brighton > [Accessed 7 February 2021].

McLeod, S., 2020. Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs pyramid . [image] Available at: < https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html > [Accessed 7 February 2021].

McLeod, S., 2020. Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs . [online] Simplypsychology.org. Available at: <https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html> [Accessed 7 February 2021].

Word count: 500

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A Guide on How to Write a Teamwork Reflection with Examples

“The strength of the team is each individual member and the strength of each member is the team.” Phil Jackson

Reflective practices have always been a great way to look back on your experience and improve your actions for the future. For those who are not aware of the term reflection, it refers to an examination of one’s actions, experiences, and perspectives in order to find critical areas for improvement. Simply put, it is more like learning from the past in order to enhance future scenarios.

Step 1 - describe the main focus of the reflection, step 2 - elaborate on the objective of the project, step 3 - elucidate the responsibilities of the team, step 4 - highlight the status of the objective, step 5 - underline the challenges, step 6 - emphasize learnings, step 7 - accentuate changes in future endeavors.

Teamwork reflection examples

Reflecting on our actions or decisions is our path to enlightenment and it does add immensely to our vision and future goals. From students to employees, everyone needs to work in teams quite often in their pursuit of meeting their goals. Having said that, it is essential for you to know how to write a teamwork reflection.

This is your complete guide on writing a teamwork reflection that is inclusive of a stepwise approach to writing a reflection of your participation in a team project. Besides, the guide includes three effective examples for greater understanding. So, to begin with, let us get started with the process of writing a teamwork reflection. To assist you with a better comprehension of the writing of a teamwork reflection, every step covers the same example elaborating on the teamwork reflection of performing surgery in the operations room.

How to write a teamwork reflection in 7 easy steps

7 easy steps of writing a teamwork reflection

The first and foremost step in writing a teamwork reflection is to describe the main focus of the reflection i.e. describing the experience you want to reflect upon. Along with this, you will also describe whether your reflection talks about teamwork or it is a self-reflection. To simplify, this section in-depth will talk about the whole central idea of reflection on the event including all the main aspects that contributed to the occurrence of the event. While describing the main focus of the reflection, you need to keep 5Ws and 1H in mind where 5Ws and 1H stand for

When - In this, you will describe the time of the occurrence of the event.

Where - This will focus on the location where the event took place.

What - Through this, you will describe what exactly happened during the event.

Why - While answering why, you will focus on highlighting the reasons things happened in the way they did.

Who - Who part will answer the question by describing which all people were involved in the event.

How - Lastly, you will include how everyone including you contributed to the occurrence of the event

Effectively answering the 5Ws and 1H will give you a detailed description of the whole incident you want to express in terms of an engaging reflection write-up. However, you have to ensure that the main focus of the reflection should be concise and meticulous enough that it should clearly highlight the central idea to the readers.

Introduction

This teamwork reflection is regarding a leg surgery we performed at The Alfred last month. We needed to perform surgery on a patient who got an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury on his leg in a car accident. We were a team of 5 including nurses and doctors. The surgery was successful because everyone performed their tasks responsibly.

After describing the main focus of the reflection, you are ready to move on to the next step i.e. elaborating on the objective of the whole project. Simply put, you have to describe the key objectives of the project that you wish to achieve through your teamwork.

The main objective of the surgery was to rebuild the ligament with a tissue graft in order to ensure that the patient can smoothly perform his regular day to day basis tasks on his own.

Succeeding that, you will elaborate on the responsibilities of the team in detail. To elaborate, you will effectively define which team member of your group was assigned which task. Here, you can also elaborate on the various leadership theories that were applied at the team level. Following that, you will also provide detailed information on whether your team members were successful in completing their responsibilities on an individual level and the team level.

We were a total of five members were responsible for performing the surgery

1. Surgeon - He was responsible for taking out the graft from other tendons in the knee or thigh areas.

2. Anesthesiologist - I was responsible for deciding the level of anesthesia that needs to be given to the patient from time to time.

3. Nurse anesthetist - She was the assistant to the anesthesiologist and was supposed to take care of the temperature of the patient and other functional changes occurring in the body.

4. Circulating nurse - He was responsible for helping the surgeon throughout the process of surgery.

5. Surgical tech - Surgical tech was responsible for ensuring that all the tools are available in the surgery room and will hand them out as per the surgeon’s instructions.

In this section, after describing the roles and responsibilities, you will further elaborate on the status of the objective. In this section, you will highlight the correlation between the efforts of your team members and how their efforts contributed to the successful completion of your overall objective. Along with this, you will also highlight the reason why the objective was achieved or why it was not achieved.

The operation was successful and we were successfully able to remove the graft from a cadaver and deposit it in the injured area. The reason that the operation was successful was that everybody knew their responsibility beforehand and the whole surgery was performed with cordiality.

Coming to the next step, next you will emphasize the challenges that you faced during the completion of the team task. In this, challenges will be described in both the senses mentioned below.

The challenges you faced at the individual level

The challenges you encountered at the team level.

For instance, if ethical issues proved to be a hindrance to the accomplishment of the objectives, you ought to highlight them. Underlining the challenges will assist you in further indicating the key pitfalls that would have contributed to delay or inefficient results. After this, you can significantly conduct a gap analysis that will highlight the major reason why pitfalls occurred. Results of the gap analysis will also assist you in making future strategies to avoid these challenges.

During the surgery, we were a group of diverse teams in which the members were of different social groups. Hence, during the operation, we faced the challenge of understanding each other’s non-verbal language signs. On a personal level, as I was an intern in nursing, I faced the challenge of coping with the senior members’ speed. They were moving really fast with every step during the surgery, so, I got a little anxious through the whole surgery.

After underlining the challenges, comes another crucial step in reflection writing. In this step, you will significantly elaborate on the learnings of the whole experience. Again, one of the crucial notable points over here is that you need to accentuate both the learnings at a personal level and at the group level. Highlighting your learnings will assist you in creating a roadmap on how you can improve for the future.

Through this surgery, we all learned irrespective of our different backgrounds, that if you have cordiality and collaboration in the team, you can carry out any major operation successfully. Personally, I learned that with time and experience, people gradually build their speed in performing different tasks. Additionally, I also got to learn how to work professionally with a team of highly skilled surgeons.

With this, we have come to our last but definitely not the least step of the writing teamwork reflection is focusing on the changes that you will make for the future. To elaborate, lastly, you will focus on how you need to change your strategies in order to come up with more efficient results. On the other side of it, you are done with your well-written reflection on teamwork.

During future operations, we will ensure to cross-check whether everyone has been very well prepared for the operation and all the apparatus are available for the operations. On the other hand, in the future, I will ensure that I come with a free mind in the operation room. Besides, if anything goes wrong, I would take deep breaths to calm myself down and continue the progress to complete the assigned task.

At last, another important consideration in writing a reflection using the above-given steps is subject to change until you are not using any particular reflection out of several prominent reflection models .

To continue, to give you a better comprehension of how to write a reflection about teamwork, we have two completely different samples of teamwork reflection. Firstly, an example of teamwork reflection will be about teamwork and collaboration in nursing. Following that, an example of teamwork reflection as a nursing student is highlighted. Lastly, an effective example of teamwork reflection in the workplace will be provided.

Group teamwork reflection examples

Example 1 - sample of group teamwork reflection as a nursing practitioner.

Sample of team reflection as a nursing practitioner

Assessment task - Teamwork reflection by nursing practitioners

For - Nursing practitioners

Task - Team reflection on the duties performed in the context of nursing practices for old age care

Working center - Berengarra Residential Aged Care Facility

Step 1 - Describe the main focus of reflection

Gone are the days when a single doctor or dentist or other health organization practitioners could solely deliver high-quality care that could easily satisfy their patients. Today, it requires a good tea to offer satisfactory service to the patients. The complexity of the care that patients need today highlights the need for health professionals to collaborate and communicate clearly with each other (Eddy, Jordan & Stephenson, 2016). We learned this through our recent experience which will be described in this reflection.

This teamwork reflection will confer our experience of taking care of old age people about a week ago. We were 4 team members that were supposed to visit Berengarra Residential Aged Care Facility and take care of old aged people. The reason that we were assigned this job was that the previously assigned team failed in performing their duty due to a lack of responsibility. Although we also faced some challenges, eventually we took care of everything and successfully performed our duty because of our collaboration and teamwork.

Step 2 - Elaborate on the objectives of the project

The main objective of this project was to effectively take care of the elderly people that need the utmost care and support because of a lack of energy to even perform basic daily tasks. Moreover, most of the people in old age care centers are suffering from worry or distress due to leaving their homes because of ample reasons such as abandonment from their homes. People living in the old age care center often experience depression and in old age. This is either the result of living alone or due to a lack of connection breakage with their culture of origin. This results in an incapacity to actively participate in the activities of the community (Singh & Misra, 2009). Hence, another objective of this project was to connect with the old age people and give them the support and care they deserve at this age.

We were a team of 5 people and we all divided our responsibilities as per the handling of different essential activities every day. To maintain confidentiality, I will address each member as members 1, 2, 3, and 4. Team member one was responsible for the food committee and was supposed to look after all the meals in terms of their quality and the timely serving of the meals. In different old age centers, old people often lack the energy to perform daily personal tasks such as changing and bathing.

So, team member 2 was responsible for taking care of the bathing and dressing assistance of elderly people. Team member 3 was me and I was accountable for medication assistance for the elderly people and for ensuring that every patient gets their medications on time. Lastly, team member 5 was responsible for coordinating with the housekeeping team and ensuring proper sanitation at the whole place, and keeping the place disinfected.

Step 4 - Final status of the objective

After a month, we were relieved from the duty, and in our final evaluation our supervisors evaluated the place and took the feedback and we got good feedback and ratings. This implies that we were successful in achieving our ultimate goal and providing efficient service to the old age center. Secondly, we got blessings from the elderly and this indicated that we were successful in achieving the second objective of providing a satisfactory service to the old age people.

Step 5 - Highlight the main challenges

Through the whole tenure we worked at that old age center, we encountered a few challenges. Firstly, as it was a completely new place to us, So, it was challenging for all of us to adjust to the new environment. So, it took us some time to adjust to their daily routines and learn their daily routines. Besides, the last team that was in charge was accused of a lack of responsibility, so it was pressure on us to avoid that tag for us.

On a personal level, as I was in charge of medication for the patient, there were 20 patients under my supervision. Hence, it was quite challenging for me to keep a record of all the patients and the time and name of the medicines that were supposed to get delivered to the target audience. So, I took assistance from team member 1 who was in charge of the food committee. He had this tool on his iPad where he stored all the data and kept a track of all the medication easily and suggested the same to me. He assisted me effectively and we divided up the number of patients to effectively maintain the record.

Through this whole experience we learned how crucial coordination and collaboration are in the healthcare sector. If we would have not divided our work or assisted each other, it would not have been possible for us to successfully take care of the old age people. It was our collaboration and trust in each other as a team that made us successful in achieving the target and getting good feedback from our superiors.

On a personal level, I learned that there will always be difficulty in handling different situations and it is always good to ask for help if needed rather than handling it all on your own and messing it up by doing it alone. Besides, I also learned that technology can be a great helping hand if used effectively.

On a team level, for the future we would ensure that we calm ourselves down and try our best to adapt and blend the environment as soon as possible to effectively work on giving the best services. Besides, we would also have frequent team meetings every day to ensure that if any team member needs any sort of help or assistance with their tasks.

On the other hand, if similar situations occur again, on a personal level, I would definitely ensure that I would learn more about different applications that can offer assistance to me in managing different records.

Example 2 - Sample of group teamwork reflection as a nursing student

Sample of team reflection as a nursing student

Assessment task - Teamwork reflection by nursing students

For - Nursing students

Task - Team reflection on the PowerPoint presentation by nursing students

Working center - University of Texas Arlington

I have always believed that teamwork always brings out the dreamwork. But, in order for a team to give efficient results, every team member needs to collaborate and engage in teamwork (Schmutz, Meier & Manser, 2019). I learned this through the effective experience I had in my second year of doing a Master's in Nursing with a Specialty in Nursing Administration and Management at the University of Texas Arlington. I was in a group of 5 people and we were assigned the task of creating a PowerPoint presentation.

We all agreed on the topic, “How health practitioners can support families of children with autism spectrum disorders”. All the team members together decided and made me the team leader and on their suggestion only I distributed the tasks among the teams.

There were two major objectives of this project. Firstly, we wanted to find out the different ways through which we can support families of children dealing with autism spectrum disorders. The major reason for this objective was that as nurses there often comes a time when we would have to support the families of children dealing with different disorders. While preparing for this presentation, we would understand various methods through which we can offer support to the families of children dealing with ASD.

The second crucial objective of this task was our teachers wanted us to know how to work in teams effectively. The major reason behind the same is that nursing teams are often instructed to handle a bunch of patients or wards in different sections. Learning how to work in a team would give us clarity on how we can work together effectively to get the desired results.

We were in a group of 5 members and to maintain the confidentiality of the names, I would refer to each member as Student A, Student B, Student C, Student D, and me. While keeping in mind the capabilities and key skills of all my team members, I decided to give them the task that suited their capabilities. Student A - Student A was very good with research and had in-depth knowledge about how to find relevant and high authority-certified research papers. Besides, the topic of the presentation majorly required in-depth research about finding different ways to support families of children with ASD. Hence, student A was responsible for finding all the relevant research papers, theses, and dissertations related to the topic of the presentation.

Student B voluntarily decided to take the responsibility of digging out the relevant information because she liked reading. Once all the relevant literature had been selected, then Student B was responsible for shunting out all the relevant information that needed to be added to the PowerPoint presentation. For student C, we decided to give the responsibility of arranging the data in a presentable form. The major reason behind the same was that it was pre-decided that C might not be able to get the task done because of his interview round. So, as part of the contingency plan we decided to give student C the minimum work because even if the work doesn't get done, nobody has to bear an extra burden. Student D had a specialized certification in PowerPoint presentation so we decided to give him the duty of creating the final presentation. Me, as everybody decided, I would be the team lead so I was responsible to give the final presentation in front of the whole class.

Step 4 - Describe the final status of the objectives

Everybody in my team did proper work as per their assigned responsibilities. Although as a part of the contingency plan we decided to give student C minimal responsibilities possible he also finished his work on time before going to the interview. I believe this objective was successfully attained because we had everything planned in advance along with pre-decided responsibilities for everyone. As everyone knew what they had to do even when we faced challenges during the language barriers or lack of coordination, everybody did their part very well. However, when it was my turn to present the presentation in front of the whole class, I got a little nervous and even fumbled in some places during delivering my presentation. But in the end, we were successful in achieving the main objective of working together irrespective of some challenges we faced. Moreover, we also learn so much about how to support families of children with autism syndrome disorder.

We had to encounter various types of challenges that we had to face during this presentation. Even I personally had to experience some of the challenges. At the team level - as we were still studying under a remote structure, for the team level we faced communication challenges because there were many people who did not have high-quality internet connections in their homes. Besides, two of the team members belong to other nationalities so we also faced language barriers as a major challenge during communication with them. Language barriers in a multinational team often lead to reduced participation in team communication (Tenzer, Pudelko & Zellmer-Bruhn, 2021).

On a personal level, I am an introvert by nature and somehow also lacked confidence in public speaking. As I was the one who had to present it in front of the entire class, I was a little nervous and also thought that I would not be able to present it meticulously.

Through the whole experience, on a personal level, I learned how crucial communication skills are in my nursing profession. The reason is irrespective of this presentation in the future as well I would have to interact with the families of the patient or with the patient. Hence, I have to socialize and would have to work on my communication skills as well. Good communication skill does not only rely on the physical abilities of nurses, but also on education and experience (Kourkouta & Papathanasiou, 2014).

On the team level, I gotta know that cordiality and planning are really crucial in any team for the successful accomplishment of the desired goal. Irrespective of the fact that we had a language barrier or connectivity issue, as everything was well-planned everybody did their part very well.

In the future, I personally feel that I would like to make two changes to the action plan that we followed in this experience. On an individual level, I would definitely take some of the communication skill courses from different learning apps and would even practice public speaking to socialize comparatively better to this experience. On the team level, if the situation occurs in the remote working structure again, then I would prefer to use various project management software or different applications that could help us with coordination and planning more effectively.

Example 3 - Sample of group teamwork reflection in the workplace

Sample of team reflection in a workplace

Assessment task - Teamwork reflection by employees in a workplace

For - Employees

Task - Team reflection on the achieving a target in a workplace

Workplace - AB Enterprises

The success of any workplace majorly depends on teamwork and collaboration between its employees. A group accomplishes the highest amount of accomplishments when it is completely focused on a task and completely utilizes every participant’s ability. The most important factor that impacts the success of team collaboration is trust. Without trust, the team significantly runs the risk of deteriorating over time (Bennett & Gadlin, 2012). I learned this from a recent experience I had in my company when we were assigned a task that we have to perform in a group.

Last month, the superiors of our AB enterprise company assigned us the target of making our website rank in the top 10 search engine results for some particular keywords in the span of 3 months. We were a total of 5 people in the marketing team that was assigned this task 4 months back. After effectively planning everything and using different strategies and tactics, we successfully achieved our target.

The main objective of this project was to convert our website into a revenue-generating website. The first step for achieving the same was it was essential that our website should rank on the first pages of the search engines. Secondly, we were a newly formed team, our employer wanted us to understand the true meaning of the team, collaboration, and trust. Hence, he assigned us this task to let us understand the true meaning of the team.

We were a team of 5 members and out of which I was the SEO content writer with another junior content writer. Along with this, we had 2 members of the technical SEO team and 1 member was from the development team. Both of the content writers including me were responsible for creating engaging content for the website. Technical SEO members were responsible for optimizing the content and pitching for gaining backlinks in order to make the website rank higher. Besides, the responsibility of the developer was to upload the content, set the structure, and ensure that there remains no errors in the development phase so that the target can be achieved.

After working hard for 3 months and working overtime as well, we finally achieved the target and made our website rank for 10 keywords that were related to our niche. Moreover, when we worked together for three months as a team, we bonded and collaborated effectively to get the desired results. We trusted and assisted each other in understanding things and getting the work going so that we can achieve the target by the assigned deadline.

Throughout the whole process, we faced many challenges down the line. On a team level, the senior technical SEO got a stomach infection and was on leave for almost 15 days. In her absence, the other member faced many issues in handling the work alone. But here he asked for my assistance and for this, I had to learn about technical SEO first, and then I assisted him with all his doubts.

On a personal level, as I was leading this project, I also had other responsibilities along with writing the content. So, I faced challenges in managing my work of content writing and other responsibilities. Hence to ensure a proper balance and clear my pendencies, I did work some of the work after office hours as well.

Through this whole project, we all learned that if we collaborate effectively and work together, we can easily achieve any target. Moreover, we realized that trust is really important for the successful accomplishment of the project. Trusting teams can effectively assist in enhancing cooperation and collaboration in processes. Furthermore, this will assist them in managing their interdependencies among their respective areas of expertise (Bond-Barnard, Fletcher & Steyn, 2018). We had three subteams in a bigger circle of the marketing team. None of the subteams interfered with each other’s tasks and everyone took accountability for performing their assigned tasks with utmost efficiency.

On a personal level, I learned that although we together achieved the desired results, taking over responsibilities disrupted my work-life balance and I felt stressed from time to time due to this. Hence, I learned that I need to manage my time during working hours more effectively so that I would not have to do work from home.

On a group level, in the planning phase only, we will break our bigger target into smaller ones. So that, we would effectively be able to keep track of our overall levels of accomplishments. Moreover, in the future, if similar situations occur, we would create contingency plans as well. For example, in this situation, our team member got sick, and the burden of the same was on the other members. So, we would learn little of everything from the next time onward. So that, if anything goes wrong, we would have each other’s support to handle the crisis.

On a personal level, as I have too many responsibilities to handle, I would try to delegate some of my tasks to my juniors. So that, I would be able to focus more on the tasks that need my most attention. The next time, I would also take help from various productivity and time management tools to keep a track of all time I am spending on all the necessary and unnecessary tasks.

To conclude, teamwork is an important part of the work irrespective of the industry you work in. Hence, it is really essential to look back and reflect on the incidents to learn something every time that can assist in enhancing your efficiency. Moreover, the above-given information will effectively assist you in writing a good teamwork reflection as well.

How important is self-assessment in a teamwork reflection?

Self-assessment is a crucial aspect of a teamwork reflection. It allows you to evaluate your strengths and weaknesses as a team member, leading to personal growth and development in future collaborative endeavors.

Should I include any references or citations in my teamwork reflection?

In most cases, teamwork reflections do not require formal references or citations unless you are referring to specific external sources. The reflection is a personal account of your experiences and insights rather than an academic or research paper.

Schmutz, J., Meier, L., & Manser, T. (2019). How effective is teamwork really? The relationship between teamwork and performance in healthcare teams: a systematic review and meta-analysis. BMJ Open, 9(9), e028280. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2018-028280

Tenzer, H., Pudelko, M., & Zellmer-Bruhn, M. (2021). The impact of language barriers on knowledge processing in multinational teams. Journal Of World Business, 56(2), 101184. doi: 10.1016/j.jwb.2020.101184

Kourkouta, L., & Papathanasiou, I. (2014). Communication in Nursing Practice. Materia Socio Medica, 26(1), 65. doi: 10.5455/msm.2014.26.65-67

Singh, A., & Misra, N. (2009). Loneliness, depression and sociability in old age. Industrial Psychiatry Journal, 18(1), 51. doi: 10.4103/0972-6748.57861

Bond-Barnard, T., Fletcher, L., & Steyn, H. (2018). Linking trust and collaboration in project teams to project management success. International Journal Of Managing Projects In Business, 11(2), 432-457. doi: 10.1108/ijmpb-06-2017-0068

Bennett, L., & Gadlin, H. (2012). Collaboration and Team Science. Journal Of Investigative Medicine, 60(5), 768-775. doi: 10.2310/jim.0b013e318250871d

Eddy, K., Jordan, Z., & Stephenson, M. (2016). Health professionals’ experience of teamwork education in acute hospital settings. JBI Database Of Systematic Reviews And Implementation Reports, 14(4), 96-137. doi: 10.11124/jbisrir-2016-1843

Supporting Students to Reflect on their Group Work

To develop group skills, students need to do more than just complete group tasks. Along the way, it's important that they reflect on group processes. Reflection can be informal or formal (built into assessment). Students can reflect individually or in groups.

Students can reflect on both the processes and products of group work. When incorporating reflective activities into group work, it is important that students have the opportunity to apply what they have learnt through their reflections to future tasks to improve their learning. This section outlines a number of ways to build reflection into group tasks and projects.

Helping students monitor their development and reflect on their performance

Reflective activities.

To develop effective group skills, students need to practise using their skills and reflect on what worked and did not work. This helps them form generalised principles based on their experience, which then inform their future actions.

You can use one or more of the following strategies to help your students reflect on their group work skills. Depending on the nature of your group task or project, you might include a reflective activity during the task or at its completion. For example, at the end of the group task, students could submit a collaborative reflective report on group processes, or they could reflect on how to in the future by completing the student exercise: Planning ahead—What can I do better next time? ).

Helping students identify how they can improve

The following exercise helps students to think about their experiences in groups, about the group's functioning and about their individual roles and contributions to the group. Importantly, it also helps students to identify how the group might function more effectively next time. Using the prompts, students can reflect individually, then discuss their responses in groups or as a class.

Student exercise

Active learning spaces
Blended and online
Brainstorming
Case studies
Flipped classroom
Questioning
Simulations
Teaching diverse groups
Helping Students Reflect
Teaching Settings

Events & news

Student Presentation Reflections

Teachers as Paragons

I struggle with articulating this point, but for the purposes of this post, I think that the most valid student-teacher dynamic is not the Jedi Master and Padawan method, but instead one where a teacher serves as a paragon of a small set of skills/attributes and the student’s role is to assimilate their experiences with all of their teachers into their own paradigm.

While this viewpoint is not revolutionary, I find that hubris often prevents a teacher from maximizing the benefit of this approach. Too often I find myself or my peers trying to be too many things to too many students. I think it is important for a teacher to make explicit commitments about which skill or attribute they wish to be the avatar for.

I chose presentation skills as my niche of instruction because I benefited greatly from the Public Speaking and Speech and Debate classes I took in high school. When I was in college, I saw very clearly those of my peers who did not have those same opportunities. I vowed that my students would be afforded opportunities to develop their presentation skills in my class no matter the other classes offered by my school.

Reflection Process

I plan on creating many posts about the different resources, examples, and assignments that I use to improve my students’ presentation skills. One of the core strategies, and I believe the most powerful, that I use to improve student presentations is a presentation reflection process.

In order to make presentation reflections be a valid assignment, you must film your students as they present—something that my 11th grade Public Speaking teacher Mrs. Shank did for me 15 years ago. Admittedly, being filmed for a presentation was nerve-wracking; however, it was also amazing beneficial. However, instead of recording presentations on VHS cassette like Mrs. Shank did, I record presentations digitally and post them as unlisted YouTube videos .

Recording Presentations

Do yourself a favor and make sure that you use a tripod to record the student presentations. You might think you can cobble together books and tape to hold a camera steady, but this is the wrong call.

If you plan on using your phone as the camera, you will need a mount to attach it to your tripod , and an improved microphone will certainly help with the audio quality, but it’s not necessary.
If you plan on using a DSLR or mirrorless camera, then you really need to improve the audio. To improve the quality of the video’s captured sound, I suggest using a shotgun microphone .

Whatever hardware you use, it is important to share with the students the camera’s field of view, so they know where they should stand. The reflection assignment is much harder if the student does not appear on camera.

Reflection Assignment

Recording the presentation is the first step, but students will need to thoughtfully watch their presentations to see areas for improvement. To guide the students’ thoughts while they watch their presentation video, I developed three sequential reflection assignments, one for each of the major presentations in my class.

This reflection process is truly eye-opening. Students are routinely shocked when they watch the video and see the nervous fidgeting or hand-wringing that they swear never happened. The pedagogical impact of a student watching themselves on video is many times more powerful than even the most helpful rubric or feedback.

In addition to reflecting on what happened, an important part of the assignment is also identifying five points on which to improve and coming up with action items for each point. An example of an improvement point and an action item would be:

I will look up the phonetic pronunciation of the words ahead of time and practice saying them to my teacher.

I always assign this as homework and give students a week to do the assignment after their presentation. I try very hard to make sure the videos get processed, uploaded, and shared with the students as soon as possible to make sure that things are fresh in their mind.

Students sometimes balk at the number of words they have to write. However, since they are writing semi-informally about themselves and have a video to go off, students routinely surpass 1000 words without blinking an eye.

Sometimes when I explain presentation reflections to teachers, they exclaim that it is too much work for them to do or they don’t know how to do the “video stuff” or something else along those lines. The video recording/editing process can be as basic or as advanced as you want it to be. Since video editing is a core part of my multimedia business, there is a lot of stuff that I do to the videos that is unnecessary but a point of pride for me.

In all honesty, a perfectly functional presentation video takes less than 3 minutes more than the presentation itself. Whether you spend 3 minutes or 30 minutes editing a presentation video, that time is returned many-fold by the presentation skill increase of your students.

Hands down, the most consistent piece of feedback I receive from alumni is that they dominate their presentations in college. This makes me very proud. I committed to developing presentation skills in my students since my very first year of teaching. Hearing back from alumni that they are drastically better than their peers at presenting puts a smile on my face every time.

Guide on How to Write a Reflection Paper with Free Tips and Example

A reflection paper is a very common type of paper among college students. Almost any subject you enroll in requires you to express your opinion on certain matters. In this article, we will explain how to write a reflection paper and provide examples and useful tips to make the essay writing process easier.

Reflection papers should have an academic tone yet be personal and subjective. In this paper, you should analyze and reflect upon how an experience, academic task, article, or lecture shaped your perception and thoughts on a subject.

Here is what you need to know about writing an effective critical reflection paper. Stick around until the end of our guide to get some useful writing tips from the writing team at EssayPro — a research paper writing service

What Is a Reflection Paper

A reflection paper is a type of paper that requires you to write your opinion on a topic, supporting it with your observations and personal experiences. As opposed to presenting your reader with the views of other academics and writers, in this essay, you get an opportunity to write your point of view—and the best part is that there is no wrong answer. It is YOUR opinion, and it is your job to express your thoughts in a manner that will be understandable and clear for all readers that will read your paper. The topic range is endless. Here are some examples: whether or not you think aliens exist, your favorite TV show, or your opinion on the outcome of WWII. You can write about pretty much anything.

There are three types of reflection paper; depending on which one you end up with, the tone you write with can be slightly different. The first type is the educational reflective paper. Here your job is to write feedback about a book, movie, or seminar you attended—in a manner that teaches the reader about it. The second is the professional paper. Usually, it is written by people who study or work in education or psychology. For example, it can be a reflection of someone’s behavior. And the last is the personal type, which explores your thoughts and feelings about an individual subject.

However, reflection paper writing will stop eventually with one very important final paper to write - your resume. This is where you will need to reflect on your entire life leading up to that moment. To learn how to list education on resume perfectly, follow the link on our dissertation writing services .

Unlock the potential of your thoughts with EssayPro . Order a reflection paper and explore a range of other academic services tailored to your needs. Dive deep into your experiences, analyze them with expert guidance, and turn your insights into an impactful reflection paper.

Free Reflection Paper Example

Now that we went over all of the essentials about a reflection paper and how to approach it, we would like to show you some examples that will definitely help you with getting started on your paper.

Reflection Paper Format

Reflection papers typically do not follow any specific format. Since it is your opinion, professors usually let you handle them in any comfortable way. It is best to write your thoughts freely, without guideline constraints. If a personal reflection paper was assigned to you, the format of your paper might depend on the criteria set by your professor. College reflection papers (also known as reflection essays) can typically range from about 400-800 words in length.

Here’s how we can suggest you format your reflection paper:

How to Start a Reflection Paper

The first thing to do when beginning to work on a reflection essay is to read your article thoroughly while taking notes. Whether you are reflecting on, for example, an activity, book/newspaper, or academic essay, you want to highlight key ideas and concepts.

You can start writing your reflection paper by summarizing the main concept of your notes to see if your essay includes all the information needed for your readers. It is helpful to add charts, diagrams, and lists to deliver your ideas to the audience in a better fashion.

After you have finished reading your article, it’s time to brainstorm. We’ve got a simple brainstorming technique for writing reflection papers. Just answer some of the basic questions below:

How did the article affect you?
How does this article catch the reader’s attention (or does it all)?
Has the article changed your mind about something? If so, explain how.
Has the article left you with any questions?
Were there any unaddressed critical issues that didn’t appear in the article?
Does the article relate to anything from your past reading experiences?
Does the article agree with any of your past reading experiences?

Here are some reflection paper topic examples for you to keep in mind before preparing to write your own:

How my views on rap music have changed over time
My reflection and interpretation of Moby Dick by Herman Melville
Why my theory about the size of the universe has changed over time
How my observations for clinical psychological studies have developed in the last year

The result of your brainstorming should be a written outline of the contents of your future paper. Do not skip this step, as it will ensure that your essay will have a proper flow and appropriate organization.

Another good way to organize your ideas is to write them down in a 3-column chart or table.

Do you want your task look awesome?

If you would like your reflection paper to look professional, feel free to check out one of our articles on how to format MLA, APA or Chicago style

Writing a Reflection Paper Outline

Reflection paper should contain few key elements:

Introduction

Your introduction should specify what you’re reflecting upon. Make sure that your thesis informs your reader about your general position, or opinion, toward your subject.

State what you are analyzing: a passage, a lecture, an academic article, an experience, etc...)
Briefly summarize the work.
Write a thesis statement stating how your subject has affected you.

One way you can start your thesis is to write:

Example: “After reading/experiencing (your chosen topic), I gained the knowledge of…”

Body Paragraphs

The body paragraphs should examine your ideas and experiences in context to your topic. Make sure each new body paragraph starts with a topic sentence.

Your reflection may include quotes and passages if you are writing about a book or an academic paper. They give your reader a point of reference to fully understand your feedback. Feel free to describe what you saw, what you heard, and how you felt.

Example: “I saw many people participating in our weight experiment. The atmosphere felt nervous yet inspiring. I was amazed by the excitement of the event.”

As with any conclusion, you should summarize what you’ve learned from the experience. Next, tell the reader how your newfound knowledge has affected your understanding of the subject in general. Finally, describe the feeling and overall lesson you had from the reading or experience.

There are a few good ways to conclude a reflection paper:

Tie all the ideas from your body paragraphs together, and generalize the major insights you’ve experienced.
Restate your thesis and summarize the content of your paper.

We have a separate blog post dedicated to writing a great conclusion. Be sure to check it out for an in-depth look at how to make a good final impression on your reader.

Need a hand? Get help from our writers. Edit, proofread or buy essay .

How to Write a Reflection Paper: Step-by-Step Guide

Step 1: create a main theme.

After you choose your topic, write a short summary about what you have learned about your experience with that topic. Then, let readers know how you feel about your case — and be honest. Chances are that your readers will likely be able to relate to your opinion or at least the way you form your perspective, which will help them better understand your reflection.

For example: After watching a TEDx episode on Wim Hof, I was able to reevaluate my preconceived notions about the negative effects of cold exposure.

Step 2: Brainstorm Ideas and Experiences You’ve Had Related to Your Topic

You can write down specific quotes, predispositions you have, things that influenced you, or anything memorable. Be personal and explain, in simple words, how you felt.

For example: • A lot of people think that even a small amount of carbohydrates will make people gain weight • A specific moment when I struggled with an excess weight where I avoided carbohydrates entirely • The consequences of my actions that gave rise to my research • The evidence and studies of nutritional science that claim carbohydrates alone are to blame for making people obese • My new experience with having a healthy diet with a well-balanced intake of nutrients • The influence of other people’s perceptions on the harm of carbohydrates, and the role their influence has had on me • New ideas I’ve created as a result of my shift in perspective

Step 3: Analyze How and Why These Ideas and Experiences Have Affected Your Interpretation of Your Theme

Pick an idea or experience you had from the last step, and analyze it further. Then, write your reasoning for agreeing or disagreeing with it.

For example, Idea: I was raised to think that carbohydrates make people gain weight.

Analysis: Most people think that if they eat any carbohydrates, such as bread, cereal, and sugar, they will gain weight. I believe in this misconception to such a great extent that I avoided carbohydrates entirely. As a result, my blood glucose levels were very low. I needed to do a lot of research to overcome my beliefs finally. Afterward, I adopted the philosophy of “everything in moderation” as a key to a healthy lifestyle.

For example: Idea: I was brought up to think that carbohydrates make people gain weight. Analysis: Most people think that if they eat any carbohydrates, such as bread, cereal, and sugar, they will gain weight. I believe in this misconception to such a great extent that I avoided carbohydrates entirely. As a result, my blood glucose levels were very low. I needed to do a lot of my own research to finally overcome my beliefs. After, I adopted the philosophy of “everything in moderation” as a key for having a healthy lifestyle.

Step 4: Make Connections Between Your Observations, Experiences, and Opinions

Try to connect your ideas and insights to form a cohesive picture for your theme. You can also try to recognize and break down your assumptions, which you may challenge in the future.

There are some subjects for reflection papers that are most commonly written about. They include:

Book – Start by writing some information about the author’s biography and summarize the plot—without revealing the ending to keep your readers interested. Make sure to include the names of the characters, the main themes, and any issues mentioned in the book. Finally, express your thoughts and reflect on the book itself.
Course – Including the course name and description is a good place to start. Then, you can write about the course flow, explain why you took this course, and tell readers what you learned from it. Since it is a reflection paper, express your opinion, supporting it with examples from the course.
Project – The structure for a reflection paper about a project has identical guidelines to that of a course. One of the things you might want to add would be the pros and cons of the course. Also, mention some changes you might want to see, and evaluate how relevant the skills you acquired are to real life.
Interview – First, introduce the person and briefly mention the discussion. Touch on the main points, controversies, and your opinion of that person.

Writing Tips

Everyone has their style of writing a reflective essay – and that's the beauty of it; you have plenty of leeway with this type of paper – but there are still a few tips everyone should incorporate.

Before you start your piece, read some examples of other papers; they will likely help you better understand what they are and how to approach yours. When picking your subject, try to write about something unusual and memorable — it is more likely to capture your readers' attention. Never write the whole essay at once. Space out the time slots when you work on your reflection paper to at least a day apart. This will allow your brain to generate new thoughts and reflections.

Short and Sweet – Most reflection papers are between 250 and 750 words. Don't go off on tangents. Only include relevant information.
Clear and Concise – Make your paper as clear and concise as possible. Use a strong thesis statement so your essay can follow it with the same strength.
Maintain the Right Tone – Use a professional and academic tone—even though the writing is personal.
Cite Your Sources – Try to cite authoritative sources and experts to back up your personal opinions.
Proofreading – Not only should you proofread for spelling and grammatical errors, but you should proofread to focus on your organization as well. Answer the question presented in the introduction.

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How To Write A Reflection Paper?

How to start a reflection paper, how long should a reflection paper be, related articles.

How to Write a Summary of a Book with an Example

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How to Write a Reflection Paper

Last Updated: March 27, 2024 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Alicia Cook . Alicia Cook is a Professional Writer based in Newark, New Jersey. With over 12 years of experience, Alicia specializes in poetry and uses her platform to advocate for families affected by addiction and to fight for breaking the stigma against addiction and mental illness. She holds a BA in English and Journalism from Georgian Court University and an MBA from Saint Peter’s University. Alicia is a bestselling poet with Andrews McMeel Publishing and her work has been featured in numerous media outlets including the NY Post, CNN, USA Today, the HuffPost, the LA Times, American Songwriter Magazine, and Bustle. She was named by Teen Vogue as one of the 10 social media poets to know and her poetry mixtape, “Stuff I’ve Been Feeling Lately” was a finalist in the 2016 Goodreads Choice Awards. There are 8 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 3,811,247 times.

Reflection papers allow you to communicate with your instructor about how a specific article, lesson, lecture, or experience shapes your understanding of class-related material. Reflection papers are personal and subjective [1] X Research source , but they must still maintain a somewhat academic tone and must still be thoroughly and cohesively organized. Here's what you need to know about writing an effective reflection.

Things You Should Know

Write an introduction that outlines the expectations you had and provide a thesis statement in the last sentence.
State your conclusions in the body paragraphs of the paper. Explain how you arrived at your conclusions using logic and concrete details.
Conclude the paper with a concise summary of your overall experience.

Sample Outline and Paper

Brainstorming

These sentences should be both descriptive yet straight to the point.

Step 2 Jot down material that stands out in your mind.

For lectures or readings, you can write down specific quotations or summarize passages.
For experiences, make a note of specific portions of your experience. You could even write a small summary or story of an event that happened during the experience that stands out. Images, sounds, or other sensory portions of your experience work, as well.

In the first column, list the main points or key experiences. These points can include anything that the author or speaker treated with importance as well as any specific details you found to be important. Divide each point into its own separate row.
In the second column, list your personal response to the points you brought up in the first column. Mention how your subjective values, experiences, and beliefs influence your response.
In the third and last column, describe how much of your personal response to share in your reflection paper.

Step 4 Ask yourself questions to guide your response.

Does the reading, lecture, or experience challenge you socially, culturally, emotionally, or theologically? If so, where and how? Why does it bother you or catch your attention?
Has the reading, lecture, or experience changed your way of thinking? Did it conflict with beliefs you held previously, and what evidence did it provide you with in order to change your thought process on the topic?
Does the reading, lecture, or experience leave you with any questions? Were these questions ones you had previously or ones you developed only after finishing?
Did the author, speaker, or those involved in the experience fail to address any important issues? Could a certain fact or idea have dramatically changed the impact or conclusion of the reading, lecture, or experience?
How do the issues or ideas brought up in this reading, lecture, or experience mesh with past experiences or readings? Do the ideas contradict or support each other?

Organizing a Reflection Paper

Verify whether or not your instructor specified a word count for the paper instead of merely following this average.
If your instructor demands a word count outside of this range, meet your instructor's requirements.

For a reading or lecture, indicate what you expected based on the title, abstract, or introduction.
For an experience, indicate what you expected based on prior knowledge provided by similar experiences or information from others.

This is essentially a brief explanation of whether or not your expectations were met.
A thesis provides focus and cohesion for your reflection paper.
You could structure a reflection thesis along the following lines: “From this reading/experience, I learned...”

Step 4 Explain your conclusions in the body.

Your conclusions must be explained. You should provide details on how you arrived at those conclusions using logic and concrete details.
The focus of the paper is not a summary of the text, but you still need to draw concrete, specific details from the text or experience in order to provide context for your conclusions.
Write a separate paragraph for each conclusion or idea you developed.
Each paragraph should have its own topic sentence. This topic sentence should clearly identify your major points, conclusions, or understandings.

The conclusions or understandings explained in your body paragraphs should support your overall conclusion. One or two may conflict, but the majority should support your final conclusion.

As You Write

If you feel uncomfortable about a personal issue that affects the conclusions you reached, it is wisest not to include personal details about it.
If a certain issue is unavoidable but you feel uncomfortable revealing your personal experiences or feelings regarding it, write about the issue in more general terms. Identify the issue itself and indicate concerns you have professionally or academically.

Step 2 Maintain a professional or academic tone.

Avoid dragging someone else down in your writing. If a particular person made the experience you are reflecting on difficult, unpleasant, or uncomfortable, you must still maintain a level of detachment as you describe that person's influence. Instead of stating something like, “Bob was such a rude jerk,” say something more along the lines of, “One man was abrupt and spoke harshly, making me feel as though I was not welcome there.” Describe the actions, not the person, and frame those actions within the context of how they influenced your conclusions.
A reflection paper is one of the few pieces of academic writing in which you can get away with using the first person pronoun “I.” That said, you should still relate your subjective feelings and opinions using specific evidence to explain them. [8] X Research source
Avoid slang and always use correct spelling and grammar. Internet abbreviations like “LOL” or “OMG” are fine to use personally among friends and family, but this is still an academic paper, so you need to treat it with the grammatical respect it deserves. Do not treat it as a personal journal entry.
Check and double-check your spelling and grammar after you finish your paper.

Step 3 Review your reflection paper at the sentence level.

Keep your sentences focused. Avoid squeezing multiple ideas into one sentence.
Avoid sentence fragments. Make sure that each sentence has a subject and a verb.
Vary your sentence length. Include both simple sentences with a single subject and verb and complex sentences with multiple clauses. Doing so makes your paper sound more conversational and natural, and prevents the writing from becoming too wooden. [9] X Research source

Common transitional phrases include "for example," "for instance," "as a result," "an opposite view is," and "a different perspective is."

Step 5 Relate relevant classroom information to the experience or reading.

For instance, if reflecting on a piece of literary criticism, you could mention how your beliefs and ideas about the literary theory addressed in the article relate to what your instructor taught you about it or how it applies to prose and poetry read in class.
As another example, if reflecting on a new social experience for a sociology class, you could relate that experience to specific ideas or social patterns discussed in class.

Expert Q&A

↑ https://www.csuohio.edu/writing-center/reflection-papers
↑ https://libguides.usc.edu/writingguide/assignments/reflectionpaper
↑ Alicia Cook. Professional Writer. Expert Interview. 11 December 2020.
↑ https://www.trentu.ca/academicskills/how-guides/how-write-university/how-approach-any-assignment/how-write-reflection-paper
↑ https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/thesis-statements/
↑ https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/conclusions/
↑ https://www.anu.edu.au/students/academic-skills/writing-assessment/reflective-writing/reflective-essays
↑ https://academicguides.waldenu.edu/writingcenter/scholarlyvoice/sentencestructure

About This Article

To write a reflection paper, start with an introduction where you state any expectations you had for the reading, lesson, or experience you're reflecting on. At the end of your intro, include a thesis statement that explains how your views have changed. In the body of your essay, explain the conclusions you reached after the reading, lesson, or experience and discuss how you arrived at them. Finally, finish your paper with a succinct conclusion that explains what you've learned. To learn how to brainstorm for your paper, keep reading! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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Oral presentations: Part 1-4

This series of four videos covers preparing for a group presentation, how to structure your presentation, presentation skills and having a clear message.

Organising group work

A group presentation does not involve separate parts getting stitched together at the last minute. Group members need to collaborate at key points throughout the whole process. Watch this video and see how.

Your talk may be a group effort and this introduces organizational issues that can make or break the success of your presentation.

It's not appropriate to dissect the talk like a cake and distribute the parts to individual members to take care of. The body needs to be worked on by everyone collaboratively.

Specific sections of the body may be divided between your team to be deeply researched or delivered. But at some stage you need to regroup to put those pieces back together again. First of all, you need to be able to meet face-to-face preferably, and it would be good to have a regular time when this is convenient for all of you. At least once each week.

Don’t forget to exchange phone numbers and emails as well.  If this is not a familiar topic, everyone should just go there own way at first and read broadly to get a feel for the area. But sharing any articles are particularly good of course. 

You need to regroup soon, and decide what two to four topics should be covered. That is, if these are not already specified by your lecturer and it would be excellent to agree on a central message before you start writing the body, if possible. 

If you want a central theme, this should be defined early on if you can to guide people's research from the beginning. >When the topics are decided you can go your own way and research your section deeply.

Keep in touch regularly with any of the other group members, whose area may overlap yours, because you don’t want to repeat material. 

It is most satisfying and effective if you get to talk on the topic that you have researched yourself. You want to sound like the expert.

Remember not to measure your contribution to the group in terms of minutes standing up in speaking. This is never the hardest part. The hardest part lies in the researching, collaboration and preparation of visual resources. 

Once the body of your talk is defined, the group should get together and outline the introduction and conclusion together.

One person might write from the perspective of the part that they researched, and introductions and conclusions need to have a sense of overview. 

Writing the introduction and conclusion will be easy once the body is done.

But they are almost impossible to write in isolation from the body.

In the next chapter we will be looking at part two of oral presentations a sample structure.

A sample structure

Just as writing tasks have a structure, oral presentations have structure too. Without the structure, your key points will lack strength or be lost entirely. Watch this video and get some tips on how to get your message across effectively.

A sample structure of an oral presentation that I will outline here is about ‘autistic spectrum disorders’. This sample is supposed to be the outline of a twenty-minute in-class presentation.

To hold the whole talk together, I’ve also thought about the central point or message that I would like to get across. In this talk, I would like to emphasise the idea that autism encompasses a very broad range of severities – from profoundly affected to mildly affected individuals – and for this reason, it often goes unrecognised when the autism is at high functioning levels.

In the introduction, I need to establish my topic and it’s importance. Of course, this is the best place to establish your central theme or message, if you have one. If you have a particular reason for talking about this topic from your own work, life, or experience, that is always very engaging for the audience as well. Briefly outline the points you will cover, This is very important if you do not have a projected slide or handouts, where the audience can keep track of this. But avoid any detail at this stage. In a twenty-minute talk, you should limit the introduction to two minutes if possible.

The conclusion will consist of no new information about autism itself. The conclusion is the space to recap and remind the listener what we have touched on. If anything that is mentioned is new, it will be about the future needs and directions. The conclusion would be a great place to make recommendations about what should be done at a society level or what needs to be investigated further in research.

Once again, this could be made to tie in with our message, that some people can have some form of autism and yet many of their teachers or colleagues do not fully recognise or understand their condition because they expect it to be more noticeable.

The number of points that you will cover will vary from topic to topic. The advice is to have fewer points than too many in your body. If you have a lot of points, try to group them under three to four themes Talk about less, and go for depth rather than briefly skimming through a shopping list of ideas. If you decide to do an activity in your presentation, put it in where it’s most relevant. However it is probably better to do it earlier in the body or even in the introduction. because it can pique the listener's curiosity before they receive a lot information.

If you do have a central message, become skilled at saying the same thing in many different ways. Just as I’ve been doing. It would be very tedious to repeat exactly the same words of course. But, if you do it in a very subtle way, your audience will appreciate the enforcement of that idea.

Presentation skills

Being a good speaker is something that can be learned and practised. This video will give you some tips for delivering an effective and professional talk.

Many students approach writing their oral presentation the same way they approach writing an essay when, in fact, the two are completely different. An oral presentation is assessed on how well you can communicate your message or If you like, how you perform. You may get some assessment marks for the slides you produce or the handouts you’ve made, but essentially you will be marked by how well you communicate your message on the day.

So, do not write pages of sentences as you would in an essay. You cannot read these out. Natural speech does not use the long and grammatically complicated sentences that you would write in a text. Your audience would have to concentrate very hard to listen to that.

Think of your audience. and how you will keep their attention. You need to make it relevant for them, and not just show how much you’ve read. You cannot deliver all of the information you might fit into an essay. For an oral presentation, you need to reduce the amount of detail and repeat key ideas a lot more. What helps a lot is to have a key idea, or message, that you want your audience to remember. They may forget 80% of your talk, but if you have a key theme or a main point that you emphasise over and over again, they will likely remember that. And later, it is easier to remember details in relation to that key point.

Do not give the impression that you are relating what you have recently read in textbooks. Aim to give the impression that you know a lot about this, topic and that you’ve been working in the field for years. You need to have that air of confidence that comes from talking about something you know really well and have a lot of experience in. Generally, this will not be the reality of course, but you can get very familiar with your topic by reading lots and lots of literature. Five minutes of effective speaking does not mean you have only gathered five minutes of information.

As mentioned, you need to talk to your audience in a relaxed and natural, but still professional manner. You still want to keep on track, so dot points on cards – instead of, or in addition to your PowerPoint – can be quite useful. You don’t want the presentation to sound scripted, but you still want to keep on track; so speaking from dot points is efficient because you are on limited time. It also jogs your memory just in case you’re a little bit nervous.

Whether you use cards or the screen, remember to look up and look at your audience. This is very important if you really want to communicate with them. You need to relax because when you are nervous, you tend to rush onwards. Breathe deeply, stop to think for a moment. A moment may seem a long time to you, but to your audience it is not noticeable.

It’s also very helpful to indicate when a new topic is being moved onto. The audience do not have the visual cues of a new paragraph as you do when you’re reading. So these shifts in topic need to be shown or expressed. A fresh PowerPoint slide indicates a new shift in topic. But sometimes, it’s hard to know when a speaker has moved onto a new point within that slide. You can do this with words like: secondly, or on the other hand, or let us consider a further example. You might emphasise a new point by moving to a different spot on the stage, changing the quality of your voice, or just pausing for five to ten seconds.

The important thing is that these non-native features of your language do not interfere with the meaning of the message you are trying to communicate. Saying that, however, if you do have a strong or unusual accent; it may be wise to practice in front of a native speaker, and make sure that they can understand your terminology and what you are trying to say.

Thinking about the content

Do you have a message for your audience? Do you know what to say at each stage? Watch this video to avoid the ‘blah blah blah’ delivery and make this an interesting learning experience for your audience.

It is a good idea to establish your presence in the introduction of your oral presentation. This is the time to introduce yourself and your team, but keep it brief. Most importantly, establish what you will be talking about. Remember that your audience may know very little about your topic, if anything.

So, you may need to set the scene in a very simple and general way. If you have a key idea you’re building your talk around, it is good to identify that in your introduction. It always helps the audience to relate to the speaker and to the topic, if the speaker has a personal reason or a particular experience related to the topic. At least explain why you chose the topic and why you believe it will be worthwhile to listen to. However you do it, this is your chance to capture their attention.

If possible, structure your talk around a simple, one-line message. Think of one general concept that you want your audience to remember. If you build your talk around a simple message, it has much more coherence. It avoids the shopping list structure, where you present fact after fact after fact. Your audience will remember very little of this sort of talk because it presents a mass of detail and the focus is not clear.

You do need to read a lot to discover the overview off the topic, what is important, and what are the significant debates that are going on around this topic. You may need to answer questions on the spot, so you will need deep knowledge to draw from.

From the background that you have gained from your reading, it is up to you to decide what to include in the talk. Avoid looking to one book and structuring your talk around it’s headings, chapters or sections. Take a wider perspective. You are now the expert, you decide on the most interesting and important ideas to include in your talk.Because you are the expert, you determine where the talk goes. Don’t tell the audience what information is in the book for its own sake. Be selective and tell them what is important and most interesting, and tell them what the literature says about this. because different research journals often do not agree with one another.

Actually, the topics where there is disagreement are places to be explored rather than avoided. These are often the most engaging. If you do have any personal or professional experience in the topic, that is fantastic! Draw on this as well, but be sure to make clear where ideas are from your own perspective, and what things are actually from research. Include an activity if you can – if your audience is small enough to fit in a classroom.This will allow you to have some personal interaction. It is always more engaging if you can get the audience involved.

Your time is limited, so this need not be an activity on a large scale. You can get people to just “think of a time when”, or get the people to turn to the person next to them to discuss something for a minute, or make list of five things related to your topic. The tighter your schedule is, the less flexibility you will have with participation. But it adds a great deal in communicating your message.

Handouts may be a required part of your assessment. If you do not have a PowerPoint projector available, it may be helpful for your audience to have a visual guide or a program of what you will cover. Handouts like this can support your talk and the audience can have them in front of them while you are delivering your presentation. It can be useful for the audience to have a handout for other reaasons: it might be a part of one of your activities, or it may provide stats or formulae, because these may be difficult to express verbally or to copy down.

Handouts could also add to your talk by giving further information. This may include more details that you could not fit onto your talk, .or further readings or so on. However, handouts giving further information are not always a good idea to give out beforehand because they will take the audience's attention away from your presentation.

Just remember, an oral presentation is not like an essay. Do not think you would be able to cram in all the detail you would be able to put into a two-thousand-word text. You need to keep it simple, and in an oral presentation, you need to reinforce ideas a lot more.

If you are daunted by the idea of standing and talking for five to ten minutes, you will be surprised how little time this actually is when you have plenty to say – it goes very quickly. It is important to practice over and over again. And do this as you intend to do on the day. A full dress rehearsal is very necessary. This must be out loud, full volume, and with all the slides and charts you are planning to use. Practice with an audience if possible. Make sure you time yourself as you practices as well.

Oral presentations basics
Academic poster presentations
Signal and transition words

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Subject Guides

Academic writing: a practical guide

Reflective writing.

Academic writing
The writing process
Academic writing style
Structure & cohesion
Criticality in academic writing
Working with evidence
Referencing
Assessment & feedback
Dissertations
Examination writing
Academic posters
Feedback on Structure and Organisation
Feedback on Argument, Analysis, and Critical Thinking
Feedback on Writing Style and Clarity
Feedback on Referencing and Research
Feedback on Presentation and Proofreading

Writing reflectively is essential to many academic programmes and also to completing applications for employment. This page considers what reflective writing is and how to do it.

What is reflection?

Reflection is something that we do everyday as part of being human. We plan and undertake actions, then think about whether each was successful or not, and how we might improve next time. We can also feel reflection as emotions, such as satisfaction and regret, or as a need to talk over happenings with friends. See below for an introduction to reflection as a concept.

Reflection in everyday life [Google Slides]

What is reflective writing?

Reflective writing should be thought of as recording reflective thinking. This can be done in an everyday diary entry, or instruction in a recipe book to change a cooking method next time. In academic courses, reflective is more complex and focussed. This section considers the main features of reflective writing.

Reflective writing for employability

When applying for jobs, or further academic study, students are required to think through what they have done in their degrees and translate it into evaluative writing that fulfils the criteria of job descriptions and person specifications. This is a different style of writing, the resource below will enable you to think about how to begin this transition.

There are also lots of resources available through the university's careers service and elsewhere on the Skills Guides. The links below are to pages that can offer further support and guidance.

Careers and Placements Service resources Lots of resources that relate to all aspects of job applications, including tailored writing styles and techniques.

The language of reflective writing

Reflective academic writing is:

almost always written in the first person.
evaluative - you are judging something.
partly personal, partly based on criteria.
analytical - you are usually categorising actions and events.
formal - it is for an academic audience.
carefully constructed.

Look at the sections below to see specific vocabulary types and sentence constructions that can be useful when writing reflectively.

Language for exploring outcomes

A key element of writing reflectively is being able to explain to the reader what the results of your actions were. This requires careful grading of language to ensure that what you write reflects the evidence of what happened and to convey clearly what you achieved or did not achieve.

Below are some ideas and prompts of how you can write reflectively about outcomes, using clarity and graded language.

Expressing uncertainty when writing about outcomes:

It is not yet clear that…
I do not yet (fully) understand...
It is unclear...
It is not yet fully clear...
It is not yet (fully?) known…
It appears to be the case that…
It is too soon to tell....

Often, in academic learning, the uncertainty in the outcomes is a key part of the learning and development that you undertake. It is vital therefore that you explain this clearly to the reader using careful choices in your language.

Writing about how the outcome relates to you:

I gained (xxxx) skills…
I developed…
The experience/task/process taught me…
I achieved…
I learned that…
I found that…

In each case you can add in words like, ‘significantly’, ‘greatly’, ‘less importantly’ etc. The use of evaluative adjectives enables you to express to the reader the importance and significance of your learning in terms of the outcomes achieved.

Describing how you reached your outcomes:

Having read....
Having completed (xxxx)...
I analysed…
I applied…
I learned…
I experienced…
Having reflected…

This gives the reader an idea of the nature of the reflection they are reading. How and why you reach the conclusions and learning that you express in your reflective writing is important so the reader can assess the validity and strength of your reflections.

Projecting your outcomes into the future:

If I completed a similar task in the future I would…
Having learned through this process I would…
Next time I will…
I will need to develop…. (in light of the outcomes)
Next time my responses would be different....

When showing the reader how you will use your learning in the future, it is important to be specific and again, to use accurate graded language to show how and why what you choose to highlight matters. Check carefully against task instructions to see what you are expected to reflect into the future about.

When reflecting in academic writing on outcomes, this can mean either the results of the task you have completed, for example, the accuracy of a titration in a Chemistry lab session, or what you have learned/developed within the task, for example, ensuring that an interview question is written clearly enough to produce a response that reflects what you wished to find out.

Language choices are important in ensuring the reader can see what you think in relation to the reflection you have done.

Language for interpretation

When you interpret something you are telling the reader how important it is, or what meaning is attached to it.

You may wish to indicate the value of something:

superfluous
non-essential

E.g. 'the accuracy of the transcription was essential to the accuracy of the eventual coding and analysis of the interviews undertaken. The training I undertook was critical to enabling me to transcribe quickly and accurately'

You may wish to show how ideas, actions or some other aspect developed over time:

Initially
subsequently
in sequence

E.g. 'Before we could produce the final version of the presentation, we had to complete both the research and produce a plan. This was achieved later than expected, leading to subsequent rushing of creating slides, and this contributed to a lower grade'.

You may wish to show your viewpoint or that of others:

did not think
articulated
did/did not do something

Each of these could be preceded by 'we' or 'I'.

E.g. 'I noticed that the model of the bridge was sagging. I expressed this to the group, and as I did so I noticed that two members did not seem to grasp how serious the problem was. I proposed a break and a meeting, during which I intervened to show the results of inaction.'

There is a huge range of language that can be used for interpretation, the most important thing is to remember your reader and be clear with them about what your interpretation is, so they can see your thinking and agree or disagree with you.

Language for analysis

When reflecting, it is important to show the reader that you have analysed the tasks, outcomes, learning and all other aspects that you are writing about. In most cases, you are using categories to provide structure to your reflection. Some suggestions of language to use when analysing in reflective writing are below:

Signposting that you are breaking down a task or learning into categories:

An aspect of…
An element of…
An example of…
A key feature of the task was... (e.g. teamwork)
The task was multifaceted… (then go on to list or describe the facets)
There were several experiences…
‘X’ is related to ‘y’

There may be specific categories that you should consider in your reflection. In teamwork, it could be individual and team performance, in lab work it could be accuracy and the reliability of results. It is important that the reader can see the categories you have used for your analysis.

Analysis by chronology:

Subsequently
Consequently
Stage 1 (or other)

In many tasks the order in which they were completed matters. This can be a key part of your reflection, as it is possible that you may learn to do things in a different order next time or that the chronology influenced the outcomes.

Analysis by perspective:

I considered

These language choices show that you are analysing purely by your own personal perspective. You may provide evidence to support your thinking, but it is your viewpoint that matters.

What I expected from the reading did not happen…
The Theory did not appear in our results…
The predictions made were not fulfilled…
The outcome was surprising because… (and link to what was expected)

These language choices show that you are analysing by making reference to academic learning (from an academic perspective). This means you have read or otherwise learned something and used it to form expectations, ideas and/or predictions. You can then reflect on what you found vs what you expected. The reader needs to know what has informed our reflections.

Organisation X should therefore…
A key recommendation is…
I now know that organisation x is…
Theory A can be applied to organisation X

These language choices show that analysis is being completed from a systems perspective. You are telling the reader how your learning links into the bigger picture of systems, for example, what an organisation or entity might do in response to what you have learned.

Analysing is a key element of being reflective. You must think through the task, ideas, or learning you are reflecting on and use categories to provide structure to your thought. This then translates into structure and language choices in your writing, so your reader can see clearly how you have used analysis to provide sense and structure to your reflections.

Language for evaluation

Reflecting is fundamentally an evaluative activity. Writing about reflection is therefore replete with evaluative language. A skillful reflective writer is able to grade their language to match the thinking it is expressing to the reader.

Language to show how significant something is:

Most importantly
Significantly
The principal lesson was…
Consequential
Fundamental
Insignificant
In each case the language is quantifying the significance of the element you are describing, telling the reader the product of your evaluative thought.

For example, ‘when team working I initially thought that we would succeed by setting out a plan and then working independently, but in fact, constant communication and collaboration were crucial to success. This was the most significant thing I learned.’

Language to show the strength of relationships:

X is strongly associated with Y
A is a consequence of B
There is a probable relationship between…
C does not cause D
A may influence B
I learn most strongly when doing A

In each case the language used can show how significant and strong the relationship between two factors are.

For example, ‘I learned, as part of my research methods module, that the accuracy of the data gained through surveys is directly related to the quality of the questions. Quality can be improved by reading widely and looking at surveys in existing academic papers to inform making your own questions’

Language to evaluate your viewpoint:

I was convinced...
I have developed significantly…
I learned that...
The most significant thing that I learned was…
Next time, I would definitely…
I am unclear about…
I was uncertain about…

These language choices show that you are attaching a level of significance to your reflection. This enables the reader to see what you think about the learning you achieved and the level of significance you attach to each reflection.

For example, ‘when using systematic sampling of a mixed woodland, I was convinced that method A would be most effective, but in reality, it was clear that method B produced the most accurate results. I learned that assumptions based on reading previous research can lead to inaccurate predictions. This is very important for me as I will be planning a similar sampling activity as part of my fourth year project’

Evaluating is the main element of reflecting. You need to evaluate the outcomes of the activities you have done, your part in them, the learning you achieved and the process/methods you used in your learning, among many other things. It is important that you carefully use language to show the evaluative thinking you have completed to the reader.

Varieties of reflective writing in academic studies

There are a huge variety of reflective writing tasks, which differ between programmes and modules. Some are required by the nature of the subject, like in Education, where reflection is a required standard in teaching.

Some are required by the industry area graduates are training for, such as 'Human Resources Management', where the industry accreditation body require evidence of reflective capabilities in graduates.

In some cases, reflection is about the 'learning to learn' element of degree studies, to help you to become a more effective learner. Below, some of the main reflective writing tasks found in University of York degrees are explored. In each case the advice, guidance and materials do not substitute for those provided within your modules.

Reflective essay writing

Reflective essay tasks vary greatly in what they require of you. The most important thing to do is to read the assessment brief carefully, attend any sessions and read any materials provided as guidance and to allocate time to ensure you can do the task well.

Reflective learning statements

Reflective learning statements are often attached to dissertations and projects, as well as practical activities. They are an opportunity to think about and tell the reader what you have learned, how you will use the learning, what you can do better next time and to link to other areas, such as your intended career.

Making a judgement about academic performance

Think of this type of writing as producing your own feedback. How did you do? Why? What could you improve next time? These activities may be a part of modules, they could be attached to a bigger piece of work like a dissertation or essay, or could be just a part of your module learning.

The four main questions to ask yourself when reflecting on your academic performance.

Why exactly did you achieve the grade you have been awarded? Look at your feedback, the instructions, the marking scheme and talk to your tutors to find out if you don't know.
How did your learning behaviours affect your academic performance? This covers aspects such as attendance, reading for lectures/seminars, asking questions, working with peers... the list goes on.
How did your performance compare to others? Can you identify when others did better or worse? Can you talk to your peers to find out if they are doing something you are not or being more/less effective?
What can you do differently to improve your performance? In each case, how will you ensure you can do it? Do you need training? Do you need a guide book or resources?

When writing about each of the above, you need to keep in mind the context of how you are being asked to judge your performance and ensure the reader gains the detail they need (and as this is usually a marker, this means they can give you a high grade!).

Writing a learning diary/blog/record

A learning diary or blog has become a very common method of assessing and supporting learning in many degree programmes. The aim is to help you to think through your day-to-day learning and identify what you have and have not learned, why that is and what you can improve as you go along. You are also encouraged to link your learning to bigger thinking, like future careers or your overall degree.

Other support for reflective writing

Online resources.

The general writing pages of this site offer guidance that can be applied to all types of writing, including reflective writing. Also check your department's guidance and VLE sites for tailored resources.

Other useful resources for reflective writing:

Appointments and workshops

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Next: Examination writing >>
Last Updated: Apr 3, 2024 4:02 PM
URL: https://subjectguides.york.ac.uk/academic-writing

Academic Writing / Conferences

Presenting a Poster Presentation: Tips and Reflections

by Purdue Global Academic Success Center and Writing Center · Published December 9, 2015 · Updated December 8, 2015

By Amy Sexton, Kaplan University Writing Center Tutor

Active professional development and scholarship are extremely important for educators, and conferences can provide an excellent avenue for both. As a virtual employee, I find it especially refreshing to attend physical conferences and interact face-to-face with colleagues in my field. I recently had the opportunity to present at a poster session at the Georgia International Conference on Information Literacy in Savannah, GA. As a writing tutor, I constantly help students with tasks related to information literacy, so I wanted to attend and present at this conference. I have presented workshops and traditional presentations at conferences before, but I had never presented a poster presentation, so that is what I proposed. I wanted to broaden my horizons and try something new and different. Designing and making the poster and then presenting to a group of educators was interesting and fruitful and resulted in numerous takeaways, including practical suggestions for designing and producing posters and thoughtful reflections.

Designing and Creating a Poster: Prior to this conference, my experience with primarily visual communication had been limited to PowerPoint presentations and the occasional bulletin board, so I needed assistance with poster design. I found the following sites and articles helpful:

Creating Effective Poster Presentations – This site contains comprehensive links that cover important elements from planning to presenting the poster (Hess, Tosny, & Liegel, 2015).

How to Distinguish a Good Poster Design from a Bad One – This article gives helpful guidelines and pictures of good, bad, and ugly poster designs. As a visual learner, I appreciated seeing examples (“How to Distinguish”, n.d.).

Free Research Poster PowerPoint Templates – While I did not use a template, I found it helpful to see templates and examples (“Free Research Poster”, 2015). I would definitely use a template if I had arranged to have my poster printed (see below).

When I created my poster, I first wrote a PowerPoint presentation and then printed the slides and arranged them on a 36X48 trifold poster board. I used adhesive tabs to attach the slides to the poster. This worked well, and I was happy with my poster design, but, as always, hindsight and reflection have helped me pinpoint some things I may have done differently. I share these here in hopes that they may be helpful to others who may not be very familiar with poster design and creation.

One reason that I did not use a template was I realized that doing so would require a special printer to print the larger PowerPoint slides. I do not have a special printer, so I would have had to arrange for a printing company to print my poster. The starting price for printing a poster the size of mine is $45 at PosterPresentations.com (“Price Guide”, 2015), and a quick Internet search suggests that this is a typical price. While this may seem expensive, to compare, it is approximately the same amount that I spent preparing my poster. Also, if I had flown to the conference rather than driven, as many conference attendees do, having the poster printed and shipped to the hotel or conference site would have been necessary. Obviously, having a poster printed would be an extra step that would need to be factored into the planning process.

Conference Reflections: Preparing the poster, traveling with it, and setting it up at the conference went smoothly, but, once I was in the room and presenting with colleagues, I noticed that many of the other presenters had a related, tangible action that they discussed with conference participants, such as a study, project, or course revision. The presenters to my left talked about an ongoing traveling librarian program at their university; the presenter on my right detailed the successes of implementing an information literacy component using Web 2.0 technologies into a library research course. While my project had good ideas and research, I have not yet implemented any of my findings (other than to publish an article on this blog: Exploring and Preventing Plagiarism in a Digital Age ), so I am now thinking about ways that I can use the knowledge I gained from my research in my daily work and future presentations.

Overall, proposing and presenting this presentation was a worth-while and fun professional learning experience. Perhaps best of all, it was something new and unfamiliar, which forced me to step, metaphorically, into the shoes of our students as each and every course they begin is likely new and unfamiliar to them.

Free research poster PowerPoint templates. (2015). Retrieved from http://www.posterpresentations.com/html/free_poster_templates.html

Hess, G., Tosney, K. & Liegel, L. (2015). Creating effective poster presentations: An effective poster. Retrieved from http://www.ncsu.edu/project/posters/index.html

How to distinguish a good poster design from a bad one. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.nuigalway.ie/remedi/poster/media/Posters_Good_and_bad.pdf

Price guide: Products and services. (2015). Retrieved from http://www.posterpresentations.com/html/price_guide.html

The Icing on the Cake: Presenting at Academic Conferences with Colleagues

May 18, 2016

by Purdue Global Academic Success Center and Writing Center · Published May 18, 2016 · Last modified March 27, 2018

Bookends: Looking Ahead to the IWCA Conference

October 5, 2016

by Purdue Global Academic Success Center and Writing Center · Published October 5, 2016 · Last modified October 7, 2020

2 Responses

Pingbacks 0

Hi Kathleen, Thank you for your feedback! I am so happy that you found my blog post helpful and that it has inspired you to consider doing your own poster presentation!

Fantastic blog, thanks! I’ve never done a Poster Presentation, but now I feel that I can do one in the future!

Guide for Giving a Group Presentation

February 21, 2018 - Dom Barnard

In certain academic and business situations, it is more valuable to deliver a group presentation than a solo one. Many people prefer group presentations because there is less pressure on the individual. However there are also unique challenges, such as having to ensure multiple individuals collaborate in order to produce a cohesive piece of work.

Preparing for the group presentation

As with any presentation, there is a significant amount of work during the preparation stage. The group must be well organised because there are multiple individuals, and therefore multiple personalities involved.

Presentation moderator

To assist with organisation, the group should first decide on a presentation moderator – this is essentially the “leader”. The presentation moderator can have the final say when decision-making is needed and, during the Q&A portion of the presentation, can decide which speakers will answer certain questions.

Understanding the audience

To make your presentation engaging you need to think about the audience so you can tailor it towards their needs. How much will the audience already know about this topic? What will they want to get from this presentation?

For example, if you are presenting the topic of building a bridge to a group of civil engineers, you can confidently use technical language. However, if you are presenting to secondary school students, you would need to use simpler language and not explain the methods in as much detail.

The presentation’s purpose

As a group, ensure you agree on the purpose of the presentation so that you all understand the message that needs to be conveyed e.g. “We want to find out which treatment works best for social anxiety.” Deciding on your message means that the group can start building key points around this – just keep in mind that each subtopic must contribute to the presentation’s aim.

Divide the presentation

The presentation needs to be divided into main areas so there is a clear beginning, middle and end. This is where can you decide on the order of the subtopics. Presentations usually follow this structure:

1. Introduction:

It is useful to agree on the first minute of the presentation as a team. This is because the audience should be interested from the start and convinced to listen.
The presentation’s aims are also discussed and an overview of the presentation’s structure is provided. For example, “We set out to explore the effectiveness of different treatments for social anxiety. We will first cover the symptoms and prevalence of social anxiety, before explaining the different treatments. This will then lead into a discussion about the pros and cons of each treatment route. Finally, we will explain which treatment route we decided was the most effective for this disorder.”

2. One or two middle sections:

These sections consist of providing the information that addresses your presentation’s aim.
There can be more of these sections depending on your topic.

3. Conclusion:

After summarising all of the key points, there must be a clear conclusion. It is beneficial to appoint the conclusion to the best speaker as this is where all the information is pooled together.

After segmenting the presentation, a time sequence can be created so the group understands the order in which tasks must be completed. It is important to set deadlines for this.

Share responsibility

A frequent problem when working within a group is unequal participation as this can subsequently cause disharmony.

But this is easily avoidable by assigning each speaker a section of the presentation to work on depending on their interests. This means that each speaker should be doing the research for their section and putting together a speech and slides (if being used).

It is important to specify exactly what each group member should be doing with their time.
Make sure the length of time per speaker is agreed on.
Do not change speakers more than necessary because this can reduce the coherency of the presentation.

Build the presentation together

For an audience to follow and enjoy a presentation, it must flow together. Meeting up and building the presentation helps with this because:

This prevents the duplication of content.
You can put the slides together, although only one individual should be responsible for merging the slides so there is consistency within the presentation.
It is useful to receive feedback on the speeches before presenting to an audience.
The team can agree on any edits.
The team can agree on the conclusion.
You can make sure that each speaker will talk for the same amount of time and cover a similar amount of information.
The team can come up with the first minute of the presentation together.

Business people giving a group presentation

Use stories to engage the audience

A good presentation opening could start with a story to highlight why your topic is significant. For example, if the topic is on the benefits of pets on physical and psychological health, you could present a story or a study about an individual whose quality of life significantly improved after being given a dog.

The audience is more likely to remember this story than a list of facts and statistics so try and incorporate relevant stories into presentations.

Know what each speaker will say

Each speaker must know what the other group members will say as this prevents repetition and it may be useful to refer to a previous speaker to assist in explaining your own section.

Also, if a team member is unable to attend on the day it will be easier to find cover within the group.

Write and practice transitions

Clean transitioning between speakers can also assist in producing a presentation that flows well. One way of doing this is:

Briefly recap on what you covered in your section: “So that was a brief introduction on what social anxiety is and how it can affect somebody”
Introduce the next speaker in the team and explain what they will discuss: “Now Sarah will talk about the prevalence of social anxiety.”
Then end by looking at the next speaker, gesturing towards them and saying their name: “Sarah”.
The next speaker should acknowledge this with a quick: “Thank you Nick.”

From this example you can see how the different sections of the presentations link which makes it easier for the audience to follow and remain engaged.

Practice the presentation

Rehearse with the group multiple times to make sure:

The structure works
Everyone is sticking to their timing.
To see if any edits are needed.

The more you rehearse a presentation the more you will feel comfortable presenting the material and answering questions as your familiarity with the content increases.

Handling nerves before the presentation

It is natural to feel nervous when presenting in front of others, regardless of the size of the audience. Here are some tips:

Remind yourself that the audience is there to listen to you and wants you to do well; there is no need to be afraid of them.
Remember that the audience members will have to present their projects later and are almost certainly feeling just as nervous.
Practicing with your group and practicing your section at home will make you more comfortable and familiar with the material and increase your confidence.
Practice pauses – when people feel nervous they tend to find silences uncomfortable and try to fill gaps, such as using “um” multiple times (filler words). Practicing pauses will help the silences feel less unnatural when you present therefore reducing the need for filler words.
When we are nervous we often begin breathing quickly and this in turn can increase our anxiety. Controlled breathing is a common technique that helps slow down your breathing to normal thus reducing your anxiety.

Exercises to control your breathing:

Sit down in an upright position as it easier for your lungs to fill with air
Breathe in through your nose and into your abdomen for four seconds
Hold this breathe for two seconds
Breathe out through your nose for six seconds
Wait a few seconds before inhaling and repeating the cycle

During the group presentation

Introducing the team.

The presentation should begin with the presentation moderator introducing the team. This is smoother than each individual presenting themselves.

Pay attention to the presentation

You may feel nervous as you wait for your turn to speak but try to listen to the presentation. The audience is able to see the whole team so it is important that you look interested in what is being said and react to it, even if you have heard it multiple times.

Body language and eye contact

Body language is a useful tool to engage the audience:

If it is your turn to speak then stand slightly in the foreground of the rest of your group.
Smile at the audience as this will make you look more confident.
Make eye contact as this helps you engage with the audience.
Keep your arms uncrossed so your body language is more open.
Do not look down and read from your notes- glancing down occasionally is fine but keep in mind that you are talking to the audience.
This is the same for presenting visual aids ; you may need to glance at the computer slide but make sure you predominantly face the audience as you are still speaking to them.
Keep your hands at your sides but use them occasionally to gesture.

Vocal variety

How you say something is just as is important as the content of your speech – arguably, more so . For example, if an individual presented on a topic very enthusiastically the audience would probably enjoy this compared to someone who covered more points but mumbled into their notes.

Here are some pointers:

Adapt your voice depending on what are you saying- if you want to highlight something then raise your voice or lower your voice for intensity.
Avoid speaking in monotone.
Sound enthusiastic – the more you sound like you care about the topic, the more the audience will listen.
Speak loudly and clearly.
If you notice that you are speaking quickly, pause and slow down.
Warm up your voice before a speech

Take short pauses and breath deeply. This will ensure you have more vocal variety.

Handling nerves during the presentation

If you find that you are too uncomfortable to give audience members direct eye contact, a helpful technique is to look directly over the heads of the audience as this gives the impression of eye contact.
Try not to engage in nervous behaviours e.g. shifting your weight or fidgeting.
Remember that it’s unlikely that the audience knows that you are feeling nervous – you do not look as anxious as you feel.
Notice whether you are speaking too quickly as this tends to happen when nervousness increases. If you are, pause and then slow down.

Strong conclusion

Since the conclusion is the last section of your presentation the audience is more likely to remember it. Summarise the key points and lead into a clear concluding statement. For example, if your presentation was on the impact of social media on self-esteem you could list all the main points covered in the presentation and conclude “Therefore, from the amount of evidence and also from the quality of evidence, we have decided that social media is negatively/positively impacting self-esteem.”

Questions and answer session

The questions and answers session after the main presentation can be a source of anxiety as it is often difficult to predict what questions will be asked. But working within a group setting means that individually you do not have to know everything about the topic.

When an audience member asks a question , the presentation moderator can refer a speaker who has the relevant knowledge to provide an answer. This avoids any hesitant pauses.

If you are answering group presentation questions:

Pause before answering- take the time to gather your thoughts and think about your answer
Make sure you answer the question- sometimes you may start providing more information than necessary. Keeping answers as concise as possible will help with this.
Ask the questioner for clarification if you do not understand- it’s better to ask rather than answering in a way that does not address the question.
You’re not expected to know everything- challenging questions will emerge and if you do not know the answer you can respond with: “That’s a really good question, I’m not certain so let me look into that.”

Ending the presentation

A good ending usually consists of the presentation moderator thanking the audience. If there is another group afterwards they should transition to the next group.

Schools & departments

Reflecting with others

Much of the reflection literature highlights the value of reflecting in conversation with other people - this can be in a formal relationship, with friends, or groups. This page highlights the benefits and provides guidance.

Others may ask us the questions we cannot think of ourselves

Reflecting with others provides many benefits to the reflective process. One thing that others might be better at than we are, is asking challenging questions. You might reflect really well by yourself and ask yourself lots of questions, to help identify your assumptions. However, you are likely to ask yourself the same type of questions again and again. Getting someone else to ask you questions might make you challenge yourself in a different way that you would never have thought of yourself.

Others can help us with perspective taking

Many reflective models and reflective theories highlight the importance of perspective taking (for example Brookfield, 1995). This is because imagining others’ thoughts and perspectives can help us understand an experience better and help us plan better actions in the future, for example asking yourself ‘what would someone who excelled at this do?’

Reflecting with others gives you the opportunity to gain their perspective on a situation. They may know things you don’t and that can help you to gain a deeper understanding.

Conversations with others can switch in and out of reflection

It is important to note that there are many types of conversations with other people that are productive, valuable, and important, but not necessarily reflective. For example, being given feedback is both productive, valuable, and important but if it is not paired with asking yourself how you can use the feedback, what it means for your practice, and how and why you do things, it is not a reflective conversation.

Outlined below are some of the different types of conversations and relationships where reflection might happen. It is very likely that all of these will fluidly switch back and forth between reflective and non-reflective elements.

Choose appropriate boundaries and be authentic within them

Common for all reflective conversations is that you should never share more than you feel comfortable with, and you should also be considerate of sharing information that the person you are reflecting with might not be comfortable knowing.

Put simply, while you can reflect with both a friend and a manager, there are things that we only talk about with friends. Both the questions asked in conversation and your answers should mirror this.

Some people may feel that you are only authentic if you are 100 % honest, but it is important to remember than authenticity does not come from disclosure, but from being genuine in the information we do share and staying true to ourselves and our boundaries.

Types of reflecting with others

Highlighted below are just a few ways of reflecting with other people; they are split into three types:

With someone more experienced

With a peer.

With a group

Throughout life you are likely to end up having many senior individuals who facilitate reflection as a part of your development. You can also help shape those relationships by suggesting reflection, if they do not support you in that way naturally.

There is a lot of value reflecting with someone more experienced than you, but there can be equal value in reflecting with a peer. Compared to the more formal relationships outlined above, the types of reflection below might involve less formality.

Reflection in groups

There are multiple ways you might find yourself reflecting in groups. The immediate benefit of reflecting in groups is the added value of multiple perspectives. Therefore it is possible to create a group of critical friends as well as using the method of ‘Structured reflections in pairs’ with more people (see the section above).

Back to ‘Ways of reflecting’

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Self Reflection on 1st Presentation

Self-Critique of my first presentation Presenter: Drilona Aliu

Description of Experience

Since I was the last one to present in class, I had the advantage of seeing everyone else presenting and catching on their strategies. It seemed that all the previous presenters were very comfortable on presenting and they rarely showed any sign on nervousness. Usually, I am able to control my nervousness by giving a “talk” to myself and I imagine myself as the subject matter expert. By having these positive thoughts in my mind, I am able to control nervousness that may be created as a result of the fear of talking in front of people and sharing something very personal such as part of my childhood.

The most challenging aspect of this presentation was creating a meaningful story through an effective framework that would transmit my emotions as a child and my journey to learn English. I find it very challenging when I have a lot to share but do not know how to properly deliver my message in a logical order. While watching the DVD, I was able to identify that this challenge was evident although I tried to hide it as I was speaking. The most surprising aspect of my speech was that I used a lot of facial expressions. This might have always been the case but because I never watched myself presenting I have not been able to identify this habit. I could have done better in certain areas such as volume and speech rate, but I believe that I gave a good overall impression.

I believe that my first speech was effective and kept the audience interested. There is more room to improve upon the introduction and conclusion such as engaging the audience in my opening question: As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up? Such questions are always a good way to start the speech as it keeps the audience interested. I also think that due to time management constraints, I could have done a better job on the conclusion such as ending my speech how this journey affected the path I chose in life. This would “justify” how English has played a role in my life and how he has influenced my personal and professional growth.

I believe that my delivery was generally clear and organized; however, while watching the DVD I noticed that I need to work more on the speech flow and find effective ways to engage the audience. My posture and eye contact were good but I definitely need to work on my speech rate, such as making more pauses so the audience is able to “digest” the information provided and not feel overwhelmed with the amount of the information at a fast pace. I also think I “overdid” my hand gestures and this is something that I need to improve. Being from the Balkan region, it is part of our culture to excessively use hands when we talk. We are very expressive that way and that may be distracting for many people in the audience. There is also room for eliminating fillers such as um as I tend to use them quite a bit, especially in the beginning of my speech.

Overall, I believe that I have many strengths such as the ability to speak without feeling overwhelmed or very nervous, to quickly think and avoid mistakes without getting frustrated (mistakes are for human beings), and to deliver my speech with effective voice projection and eye contact. The main areas for improvement would be to engage the audience as they may relate more to my speech, use fewer facial and hand gestures, speak at a slower pace and make appropriate pauses, and use fewer fillers throughout the speech.

As a result, my goals to improve in public speaking are:

Effectively organize and clearly deliver my main points. Each main point should be backed up with effective supporting points and examples to make it more illustrative for the audience. The steps I would take to improve on this goal are to develop a detailed speech outline and rehearse it several times while timing itso I do not run out of time.
Improve my speech rate. I tend to talk too fast and make very few or short pauses. It is my goal to improve my speaking pace so the audience will be able to follow it better. This can be achieved through multiple rehearsals and ability to select only worthy arguments (quantity vs quality).
Last but not least is hand gesture control. Watching myself on the DVD made me realize that I use my hands a lot when I speak and sometimes that can be distracting for the audience. I need to work on using my hand gestures appropriately and a way to improve that is through recording myself every time I deliver a speech and reviewing it as that is something I do unconsciously.

There are many other things to improve and I am confident that I will be able to incorporate these changes in my next presentation!

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How to Make a “Good” Presentation “Great”

Guy Kawasaki

Remember: Less is more.

A strong presentation is so much more than information pasted onto a series of slides with fancy backgrounds. Whether you’re pitching an idea, reporting market research, or sharing something else, a great presentation can give you a competitive advantage, and be a powerful tool when aiming to persuade, educate, or inspire others. Here are some unique elements that make a presentation stand out.

Fonts: Sans Serif fonts such as Helvetica or Arial are preferred for their clean lines, which make them easy to digest at various sizes and distances. Limit the number of font styles to two: one for headings and another for body text, to avoid visual confusion or distractions.
Colors: Colors can evoke emotions and highlight critical points, but their overuse can lead to a cluttered and confusing presentation. A limited palette of two to three main colors, complemented by a simple background, can help you draw attention to key elements without overwhelming the audience.
Pictures: Pictures can communicate complex ideas quickly and memorably but choosing the right images is key. Images or pictures should be big (perhaps 20-25% of the page), bold, and have a clear purpose that complements the slide’s text.
Layout: Don’t overcrowd your slides with too much information. When in doubt, adhere to the principle of simplicity, and aim for a clean and uncluttered layout with plenty of white space around text and images. Think phrases and bullets, not sentences.

As an intern or early career professional, chances are that you’ll be tasked with making or giving a presentation in the near future. Whether you’re pitching an idea, reporting market research, or sharing something else, a great presentation can give you a competitive advantage, and be a powerful tool when aiming to persuade, educate, or inspire others.

Guy Kawasaki is the chief evangelist at Canva and was the former chief evangelist at Apple. Guy is the author of 16 books including Think Remarkable : 9 Paths to Transform Your Life and Make a Difference.

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COMMENTS

How to write a Reflection on Group Work Essay (2024)
You might want to use google scholar or google books and type in 'Benefits of group work' to find some quality scholarly sources to cite. Step 3. Explore the general challenges group work can cause. Step 3 is the mirror image of Step 2. For this step, explore the challenges posed by group work.
How To Write A Reflection Statement
Step 4: Unpack what the reflection statement needs you to discuss for a Band 6 result. Now you're familiar with the notification and marking criteria for the assessment task, you need to get these understandings down in writing. To do this, you need to take a few steps:
A reflection on my experience of working in a group
A reflection on my experience of working in a group. Posted on February 7, 2021. Introduction - The project that I have been involved in was to make a presentation for our chosen company to review their current digital marketing campaign and to make recommendations on how to improve it. The company that we chose was The Bok Shop, "a free ...
A comprehensive guide on writing a teamwork reflection
How to write a teamwork reflection. Step 1 - Describe the main focus of the reflection. Step 2 - Elaborate on the objective of the project. Step 3 - Elucidate the responsibilities of the team. Step 4 - Highlight the status of the objective. Step 5 - Underline the challenges. Step 6 - Emphasize learnings.
Reflecting on Group Presentation with Rolfe's Reflective Cycle Essay
The following reflective essay uses this model to guide my thinking about teamwork, leadership, and time management in relation to creating a group Powerpoint presentation. The aims of this essay are to evaluate the experience of such a type of work and to describe how the things I have learned can be applied to my future nursing practice. We ...
Supporting Students to Reflect on their Group Work
Reflection can be informal or formal (built into assessment). Students can reflect individually or in groups. Students can reflect on both the processes and products of group work. When incorporating reflective activities into group work, it is important that students have the opportunity to apply what they have learnt through their reflections ...
Student Presentation Reflections
To guide the students' thoughts while they watch their presentation video, I developed three sequential reflection assignments, one for each of the major presentations in my class. This reflection process is truly eye-opening. Students are routinely shocked when they watch the video and see the nervous fidgeting or hand-wringing that they ...
How to Write a Reflection Paper: Guide with Examples
Your reflection may include quotes and passages if you are writing about a book or an academic paper. They give your reader a point of reference to fully understand your feedback. Feel free to describe what you saw, what you heard, and how you felt. Example: "I saw many people participating in our weight experiment.
How to Write a Reflection Paper: 14 Steps (with Pictures)
1. Keep it short and sweet. A typical reflection paper is between 300 and 700 words long. Verify whether or not your instructor specified a word count for the paper instead of merely following this average. If your instructor demands a word count outside of this range, meet your instructor's requirements. 2.
Oral presentations: Part 1-4
Just as writing tasks have a structure, oral presentations have structure too. Without the structure, your key points will lack strength or be lost entirely. Watch this video and get some tips on how to get your message across effectively. Oral presentations: A sample structure. Watch on.
Reflective writing
The language of reflective writing. Reflective academic writing is: almost always written in the first person. evaluative - you are judging something. partly personal, partly based on criteria. analytical - you are usually categorising actions and events. formal - it is for an academic audience. carefully constructed.
Presenting a Poster Presentation: Tips and Reflections
As a writing tutor, I constantly help students with tasks related to information literacy, so I wanted to attend and present at this conference. I have presented workshops and traditional presentations at conferences before, but I had never presented a poster presentation, so that is what I proposed.
General tips for academic reflections
Academic reflective writing requires critical and analytic thought, a clear line of argument, and the use of evidence through examples of personal experiences and thoughts and often also theoretical literature. You should aim for a balance between personal experience, tone, and academic practice and rigor. Academic reflective writing should:
Gibbs' Reflective Cycle
Overview. Gibbs' Reflective Cycle was developed by Graham Gibbs in 1988 to give structure to learning from experiences. It offers a framework for examining experiences, and given its cyclic nature lends itself particularly well to repeated experiences, allowing you to learn and plan from things that either went well or didn't go well.
How to Write a Reflection Paper in 5 Steps (plus Template and Sample
Use these 5 tips to write a thoughtful and insightful reflection paper. 1. Answer key questions. To write a reflection paper, you need to be able to observe your own thoughts and reactions to the material you've been given. A good way to start is by answering a series of key questions. For example:
Guide for Giving a Group Presentation
Sit down in an upright position as it easier for your lungs to fill with air. Breathe in through your nose and into your abdomen for four seconds. Hold this breathe for two seconds. Breathe out through your nose for six seconds. Wait a few seconds before inhaling and repeating the cycle.
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PDF Self-Reflection: Taking Part in a Group
1. Did I understand what my role was in the group? 2. Did I complete my task to the best of my ability? 3. Did I have my turn speaking? 4. Did I let others have a turn at speaking? 5. Did I listen while others were speaking? 6. Did I offer to help when it was needed? 7. Did I enjoy taking part in the group work? 8. Did I enjoy working with the ...
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73. This year, in our course we were asked to present a group presentation to discuss and develop relevant subjects. In this report I am going to briefly describe the presentation, identify the problems we faced as a group and also the aspects that could have performed better. The intent of this report is to reflect on the work we have done and ...
Reflecting with others
Reflecting with others provides many benefits to the reflective process. One thing that others might be better at than we are, is asking challenging questions. You might reflect really well by yourself and ask yourself lots of questions, to help identify your assumptions. However, you are likely to ask yourself the same type of questions again ...
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Sample Agenda Might Look Like This: 0:00 - 0:07 Kick-Off + Housekeeping Review. 0:07 - 0:10 Step 1: Solo Reflection Review. 0:10 - 0:50 Step 2: In Small Group Share-Out (20 minutes) In Small Groups pull out Key Themes to Share Back (20 minutes) 0:50 - 1:20 Step 3: Large/Full Group Share-Back, One question at a time.
Self Reflection on 1st Presentation
Self Reflection on 1st Presentation. Self-Critique of my first presentation Presenter: Drilona Aliu. Description of Experience. Since I was the last one to present in class, I had the advantage of seeing everyone else presenting and catching on their strategies. It seemed that all the previous presenters were very comfortable on presenting and ...
How to Make a "Good" Presentation "Great"
When in doubt, adhere to the principle of simplicity, and aim for a clean and uncluttered layout with plenty of white space around text and images. Think phrases and bullets, not sentences. As an ...

How to write a Reflection on Group Work Essay

Step 1. Explain what ‘Reflection’ Is

Scholarly Sources to Cite for Step 1

Possible Sources:

Extension Sources for Top Students

Get a Pdf of this article for class

Step 2. Explore the general benefits of group work for learning

Scholarly Sources for Step 3

Step 3. Explore the general challenges group work can cause

8 Pros And Cons Of Group Work At University

Step 4. Explore the specific benefits and challenges your group faced

Step 5. Discuss how your group managed your challenges

Scholarly Source for Step 5

Step 6. Conclude by exploring what you will do differently next time

Scholarly Source for Step 6

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How To Write A Reflection Statement – A Step-By-Step Guide

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What is a Reflection Statement?

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How to write a Reflection Statement – a step-by-step guide

Step 1: Produce the main piece of work for the assessment

Step 2: Read the assessment notification

Step 3: Read the marking criteria

Step 4: Unpack what the reflection statement needs you to discuss for a Band 6 result

Step 5: Reread what you have produced for your main task

Step 6: Plan your reflection statement

Step 7: Write your introductory statement

Step 8: Write the body of your argument

Step 9: Write your concluding statement

Step 10: Proof and edit your work

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Table of Contents

How to write a teamwork reflection in 7 easy steps

Introduction

Group teamwork reflection examples

Step 1 - Describe the main focus of reflection

Step 2 - Elaborate on the objectives of the project

Step 4 - Final status of the objective

Step 5 - Highlight the main challenges

Example 2 - Sample of group teamwork reflection as a nursing student

Step 4 - Describe the final status of the objectives

Example 3 - Sample of group teamwork reflection in the workplace

How important is self-assessment in a teamwork reflection?

Should I include any references or citations in my teamwork reflection?

Supporting Students to Reflect on their Group Work

Helping students monitor their development and reflect on their performance

Helping students identify how they can improve

Student exercise

Events & news

Student Presentation Reflections

Teachers as Paragons

Reflection Process

Recording Presentations

Reflection Assignment

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Guide on How to Write a Reflection Paper with Free Tips and Example

What Is a Reflection Paper

Free Reflection Paper Example

How to Start a Reflection Paper

Writing a Reflection Paper Outline

Introduction

Body Paragraphs

How to Write a Reflection Paper: Step-by-Step Guide

Step 2: Brainstorm Ideas and Experiences You’ve Had Related to Your Topic