Now that we have completed our proposal, we have to figure out a way to fit that information into a presentation. This is a challenge for us because we are having trouble agreeing on which ideas will be effective and which ones will detract from our overall theme.
In our first presentation, we had a weak hook. This time, we want to use something that will really catch people’s attention. However, we also have to keep our audience in mind. This time, our audience is the Educational Enrichment Task Force. We want to make the hook stick to them.
We also need to convince our audience that the need is real and important. In our feedback from the first presentation, this was one of the biggest things that the other groups did not like. We need to make sure we address this and really drive this point home in our final presentation.
This week, we had a presentation. I do not like presenting and I usually get really nervous. This time, I made sure that I really knew the material and I made up a note card that had just the right information on it so I could look down and remember what I needed to say next if I forgot. That helped me feel more comfortable and when it came time to actually present, I did I lot better than I have in past presentations. I stepped out of my comfort zone and got better at something that I usually dread doing.
Our group also got to see where we were in relation to all the other teams. We have been frustrated lately because we have been confused about defining our problem but it was good to see that we were not the only group in that same situation. We also got to see how other groups have overcome similar problems in their processes. We will use what we learned from the presentations to improve our project.
Throughout the weeks, my role on this team has changed. I have become more and more active. I often find myself trying to facilitate the ideas of others and make sure that we all stay on the same page. As a group, we tend to jump from one topic to the next very frequently and I have found myself trying to bring people back to the question at hand. When we divided up the proposal assignment, we decided that I would be the one to edit it and try and make it flow and make sure that it all fits together. In a sense, that is what I have been doing when we meet as well. We come up with ideas and I try to bring them together with the need statement. Everyone’s role changes a little bit each time we work together, but this is a role I have taken on a few different times now.
On Wednesday, I volunteered to be one of the presenters for our group on Monday. Normally, this is not something I would volunteer for. I hate speaking in front of an audience. However, I decided that it would be good for me to face my fears and try to become a more effective speaker.
I also met with a tutor about the memo assignment. My biggest mistake was that I did not define the need well enough. When someone reads a memo, they will ignore even the best solutions if they do not feel that there is a significant need for them. I need to make the problem clear and compelling so that I can persuade my audience to see its importance.
Our group decided that the problem that we want to address in our project is that students in the LCB seem to be generally unaware of current events. We believe that students that pay attention to the world around them have a better chance of being successful because they have the ability to connect what they learn in class with what they see in the real world. As our group begins to come up with more clear solutions to our problem, sometimes we lose sight of that. Sometimes we get so excited about the solutions we are coming up with that we forget what is most important. We would like to use some kind of edgy, innovative technology as a solution, but it may be that something low-tech would be more effective. When we get too focused on the technology, I try and remind everyone to make sure that we do not lose our sense of direction and forget about the problem itself.