My team and I had started preparing the week of and we felt that we gave ourselves plenty of time to practice. From Mary McNulty’s presentation the week prior I gained a lot of useful knowledge on what to avoid and what to do during a presentation. Therefore I feel we had a pretty clear idea from the get go on how we were going to  handle this assignment. 

 

Reflection: 

I agree with Catherine’s response as I stated above I also thought the anticipation right before the presentation itself was worse than when I was actually presenting. Also, being very informed on the topic you are speaking about helps ease the nerves. Catherine had stated that she had meticulously researched “college life” around UCC. I personally think that presenting will get easier and easier as we do hem during the year.

In response to Alex I agree that it is very important to practise before a presentation. I also learnt a lot and know what to improve on before my next one. Practicing is the best way to improve.

Based on my thoughts on public speaking from last week, the experience of public speaking has on one hand, reinforced my views of how its such a daunting task, but has also allowed me to realise that in fact, it’s not that bad after all. I feel that with practice and greater confidence I will be able to present much more coherently in the future. For me, practice is the key. I also believe that by listening to what Mary has to say and taking it fully on board, I will be able to perform with greater quality. Overall, my thoughts and feeling from last week on public speaking have been reinforced, as although it is a very daunting task, confidence and practice will aid me greatly in my future of public speaking. 

I agree with Yogi Berra’s Quote about theory and practice. Practicing anything is the number one rule to success. If you practice something over and over again you will gradually get better at it. Practice is one of the most important tools in public Speaking. For me I thought I should have practiced more on what I wanted to say. The more practice I would have done would have led to me being less nervous and more prepared. 

I found after the talk we delivered, the constructive criticism was very fair. We should have as a group spent more time organizing and interconnecting our talk together. We found it hard to link in our separate talks and to form one talk as a collective. Overall I found the experience worthwhile and beneficial for future talks we have to perform. 

In response to Axis’s entry, I would agree that taking Mary’s advice was very useful. She showed us how to present ourselves and keep a good body posture and keep good eye contact with the audience. I personally took this advise and I thought I used it well in my talk. 

I agree with Yogi Berra's  quote as before the presentation I had practiced what I was going to say and how I was going to say it however when presenting the information it was much harder to to do than I had thought. It was one thing to read what was needed but actually doing the presentation was much more difficult.

Gathering the relevant information and putting it together into a power point was much easier than presenting the information. 
Working together as a group was difficult at first as everyone had different skills and abilities and we had to try to work with these different abilities. It was also a good learning experience as we had to build up the confidence to criticize other people's work that wasn't at a good standard.
The presentation was the hardest part for me as I'm not comfortable in such situations. As I got more nervous I found it much harder to speak clearly without tripping over my words and when I noticed that I was stuttering I began yo forget what I needed to say. I think that with more practice I can overcome my fear of public speaking and improve my communication skills over all.
I found the discussion with both Mary and Daniel to be very helpful after as they pointed things out that I might not have realized I did.
In response to Sara I also felt a bit relieved to hear that we would not be presenting in front of the whole group but I was still very nervous about presenting