oral communication reflection essay

Oral Reflection

This assignment asks students to create a 3-5 minute oral reflection of their learning experience in PWR 2.

Author: Kathleen Tarr

Activity title: Oral Reflection: Genre/Modes Assignment

Activity brief description: At the end of the quarter, students engage with the genre/modes assignment by creating a creative and memorable 3-5 minute oral reflection of their learning in the course. Their spoken word presentation, song, or other variety of oral presentation requires clear answers to seven questions and includes acknowledgements of the people and sources that contributed to their success and growth as researchers, writers, and presenters. In creating their oral reflection, students consider what they have learned, their strengths of delivery and analysis, what they might have done differently, and how the skills they have developed might apply in the future.

Course: PWR 2

Activity Length & Schedule: Presented in class, Week 10

Activity goals:

Evaluate technical engagement with major assignments

Reflect in detail on significant skills or a key learning experience as it pertains to the goals of the course

• Connect learning in the course with future communication goals and practices at Stanford and/or beyond

Activity Details: See handout.

Additional notes: Encouraging students to have fun and take risks results in amazing presentations. It is important in this regard that grading of the Genre/Modes assignment is not based upon a standard of excellence but instead upon whether students simply answer the seven questions and include acknowledgements in their creative and memorable reflections.

This activity was originally shared as part of September Sessions 2016.

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The Globalization of Communication | A Reflection Paper by Paulo Habla

As I sit down and reflect on how communication flourished over the last centuries, I realized how fortunate we are as citizens of the Digital Age to grasp the privilege to be able to send messages across the entire globe with the power of a single click. At the same time I wondered, when was the last time people primarily send their handwritten letters enclosed within an envelope to those they want to relay their message to? Perhaps it has quite been a long time, dating from years and years prior to this time. Although some are still doing so, the vast majority of the population now relies to the ever-changing comfort technology offers.

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In short, this call for papers seeks to gather reflections and studies that address the complexity, speed and uncertainty of the communicative practices of contemporary societies and communities and include basic, primary and simple forms of human communication as well as those mediated by the development and reach of technology and artificial intelligence. Therefore, we will give priority to participative articles within any of the following areas: 1) Communication, artificial intelligence, digital media and transmedia and multiplatform storytelling. 2) Technology, activism and new models of creation, collection, circulation and analysis of information, know-how and scientific knowledge. 3) Communication, memories, narratives and media, and their relationships with social and citizen mobilization. 4) Communication and politics, communication policies, democracy, liberty, and power practices. 5) Impact and transformation of communication in the intimate and collective experience of groups, communities and territories, Submission deadline: November 30, 2023

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The electronic “global village” envisioned by McLuhan 50 years ago is now fully operational. Communications technologies are expanding our connectivity at an accelerating rate. Yet despite their obvious impact on how we all live and work, it’s not easy to grasp the depth of this transformation or its implications for our future, in part because our social and economic institutions are evolving much more slowly. This essay focuses on one specific consequence of the shift to electronic media – that they’re changing how we understand communication itself, both conceptually and in our everyday lives. As background, I compare the emergence of computerized media with the much slower transition that took place in ancient times, from oral to literate culture. As written text gradually became the dominant medium of cultural evolution, it fostered a distanced, objective mode of thought that made deeper levels of interpersonal connection seem irrelevant to the serious business of civilization. Today the new media vastly extend the power of published text, but they also revive the immediacy of real-time participation that belongs to oral culture. They make possible a new appreciation of the depth and complexity of communications systems, both at the physical level and in human interaction.

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Many would argue that our advanced technology is a defining feature of our modern world. Not only has it been instrumental in expanding our understanding of the world around us through extensive scientific and historical discoveries, but on a more personal level, technology has drastically shifted the way in which we communicate. Digital Communication and How It’s Changing Our World examines this shift for humanity, beginning with the history of communication and the digital revolution, and ending with how this new form of communication will impact our future as a society. Along the way, the positive and negative impacts of digital communication and social media on the job market, popular culture, our interpersonal interactions, and our individual and collective worldviews will be explored. This discussion would be incomplete without special attention paid to how capitalism has benefited through digital communication, and the dangers and scandals that have ensued as a result. Digital Communication and How It’s Changing Our World is an in-depth examination that seeks to educate the general reader on the history and current impact of digital communication on our world.

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If we were to stand at the orbit of the communications satellites, at night e would see an earth with deep dark areas and intensely illuminated areas and inhabited by a race of compulsive communicators. This need to communicate with our fellow human beings has forced us t find ways to span the distances that separate us. Just the blink of an eye ago, or so it seems t anyone born before 1970, our planet was rotating comfortably in its well-established orbit of political and social relations. Peoples and societies were neatly divided into communities identified as much by ideologies and enemy images as by nationality or race. But suddenly in the mid-1980s, someone pressed the fast-forward button and life has careened ahead topsy-turvy through a cavalcade of changes. This article looks back into ancient history and brings us up to the recent past telling the story of how we humans fought geography and distance to communicate across the planet. Though much of the world as yet to make a single telephone call, every person is affecting by our collective ability to span t e time zones and communicate meaningfully. From time immemorial we have been separated one from another by time, distance, culture and language. Have things really changed? Let's travel back in time now and look at how our ancestors succeeded and sometimes failed in their compulsion o communicate with one another.

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Critical Reflection

A Critical Reflection (also called a reflective essay) is a process of identifying, questioning, and assessing our deeply-held assumptions – about our knowledge, the way we perceive events and issues, our beliefs, feelings, and actions. When you reflect critically, you use course material (lectures, readings, discussions, etc.) to examine our biases, compare theories with current actions, search for causes and triggers, and identify problems at their core.   Critical reflection is   not   a reading assignment, a summary of an activity, or an emotional outlet.   Rather,   the goal is   to change your thinking about a subject, and thus change your behaviour.

Tip: Critical reflections are common in coursework across all disciplines, but they can take very different forms. Your instructor may ask you to develop a formal essay, produce weekly blog entries, or provide short paragraph answers to a set of questions. Read the assignment guidelines before you begin.

How to Critically Reflect

Writing a critical reflection happens in two phases.

• Analyze:   In the first phase, analyze the issue and your role by asking critical questions. Use free writing as a way to develop good ideas. Don’t worry about organized paragraphs or good grammar at this stage.
• Articulate:   In the second phase, use your analysis to develop a clear argument about what you learned. Organize your ideas so they are clear for your reader.

First phase: Analyze

A popular method for analyzing is the three stage model: What? So What? Now what?

In the  What?  stage, describe the issue, including your role, observations, and reactions. The   what?   stage helps you make initial observations about what you feel and think. At this point, there’s no need to look at your course notes or readings.

Use the questions below to guide your writing during this stage.

• What happened?
• What did you do?
• What did you expect?
• What was different?
• What was your reaction?
• What did you learn?

In the second  So What?   stage, try to understand on a deeper level why the issue is significant or relevant. Use information from your first stage, your course materials (readings, lectures, discussions) -- as well as previous experience and knowledge to help you think through the issue from a variety of perspectives.

Tip:  Since you’ll be using more course resources in this step, review your readings and course notes before you begin writing.

Below are three perspectives you can consider:

• Academic perspective: How did the experience enhance your understanding of a concept/theory/skill? Did the experience confirm your understanding or challenge it? Did you identify strengths or gaps in your knowledge?
• Personal perspective:   Why does the experience matter? What are the consequences? Were your previous expectations/assumptions confirmed or refuted? What surprised you and why?
• Systems perspective:   What were the sources of power and who benefited/who was harmed? What changes would you suggest? How does this experience help you understand the organization or system?

In the third   Now what?   stage, explore how the experience will shape your future thinking and behaviour.

Use the following questions to guide your thinking and writing:

• What are you going to do as a result of your experiences?
• What will you do differently?
• How will you apply what you learned?

Second phase: Articulate

After completing the analysis stage, you probably have a lot of writing, but it is not yet organized into a coherent story. You need to build an organized and clear argument about what you learned and how you changed. To do so,   develop a thesis statement , make an   outline ,   write , and   revise.

Develop a thesis statement

Develop a clear argument to help your reader understand what you learned. This argument should pull together different themes from your analysis into a main idea. You can see an example of a thesis statement in the sample reflection essay at the end of this resource.

Tip: For more help on developing thesis statements, see our   Thesis statements  resource

Make an outline

Once you have a clear thesis statement for your essay, build an outline. Below is a straightforward method to organize your essay.

• Background/Context of reflection
• Thesis statement
• Introduce theme A
• Writer's past position/thinking
• Moment of learning/change
• Writer's current/new position
• Introduce theme B
• Introduce theme C
• Summarize learning
• Discuss significance of learning for self and others
• Discuss future actions/behaviour

Write and revise

Time to get writing! Work from your outline and give yourself enough time for a first draft and revisions.

Even though you are writing about your personal experience and learning, your audience may still be an academic one. Consult the assignment guidelines or ask your instructor to find out whether your writing should be formal or informal.

Sample Critical Reflection

Below are sample annotated paragraphs from one student’s critical reflection for a course on society and privilege.

Introduction

Background/context of reflection : I became aware of privileged positions in society only in recent years. I was lucky enough, privileged enough, to be ignorant of such phenomena, but for some, privilege is a daily lesson of how they do not fit into mainstream culture. In the past, I defined oppression as only that which is obvious and intentional. I never realized the part I played. However, during a class field study to investigate privileged positions in everyday environments, I learned otherwise.   Thesis:   Without meaning to, I caused harm by participating in a system where I gained from others’ subtle oppression. In one of these spaces, the local mall, everything from advertisements to food to products, to the locations of doorways, bathrooms and other public necessities, made clear my privilege as a white, heterosexual male.

Body paragraph

Topic sentence : Peggy McIntosh describes privilege as an invisible knapsack of tools and advantages. This description crystalized for me when I shopped for a greeting card at the stationary store. There, as a white, heterosexual male, I felt comfortable and empowered to roam about the store as I pleased. I freely asked the clerk about a mother’s day card.   Writer’s past position:   Previously, I never considered that a store did anything but sell products. However, when I asked the sales clerk for same sex greeting cards, she paused for a few seconds and gave me a look that made me feel instantly uncomfortable. Some customers stopped to look at me. I felt a heat move over my face. I felt, for a moment, wrong for being in that store.  I quickly clarified that I was only doing a report for school, implying that I was not in fact homosexual.   Writer’s current position:   The clerk’s demeanor changed. I was free to check, she said.  It was the only time during the field study that I had felt the need to explain what I was doing to anyone. I could get out of the situation with a simple clarification. But what if I really was a member of the homosexual community? The looks and the silence taught me that I should be feared.  I realized that, along with its products, the store was selling an image of normal. But my “normality” was another person’s “abnormality.”  After I walked out of the store I felt guilty for having denied being homosexual.

Summary of learning:   At the mall I realized how much we indirectly shame nonprivileged groups, even in seemingly welcoming spaces. That shame is supported every time I or any other privileged individual fails to question our advantage. And it leads to a different kind of shame carried by privileged individuals, too.   Value for self and others:   All of this, as Brown (2003) documents, is exacerbated by silence. Thus, the next step for me is to not only question privilege internally, but to publicly question covert bias and oppression. If I do, I may very well be shamed for speaking out. But my actions might just encourage other people to speak up as well.

Sample paragraphs adapted from James C. Olsen's Teaching Portfolio from Georgetown University .