Critical Reflection

When I initially came to this module, my goals were to become more independent, improve my presentation skills and develop critical thinking. Throughout this trimester, critical thinking and critical reflection have helped me improve my self-evaluation, presentation skills, and critical thinking skills.

Through my professor’s seminars and constant interaction with my peers, I learned that critical thinking fosters independence. Critical thinking helps you become more self-reliant. You are independent and fully responsible for your strengths and flaws. This helps you avoid mistakes and raises the bar on your ability to judge and evaluate, which helps me with my self-evaluation. With improved self-evaluation, my ability to evaluate myself more critically is improved. Critical reasoning and logical arguments aid in accurately reflecting my own ideals and decisions.

I also learned that critical thinking improves language and presentation skills. By exercising critical thinking, I can structure the way I express my ideas in an organized and objective manner. Analyzing my data logically makes it easier for me to express my ideas more effectively to my audience.

Hence, I believed that I have achieved my initial goals of being more independent, improving my presentation skills, and developing critical thinking. With what I learned, I became more self-aware and critical in evaluating all my work and the persuasiveness of my arguments to determine whether there was room for improvement. It is insufficient for me to rely just on what I have been taught or given, I critically analyze the information and think for myself in order to develop strong arguments supported by evidence. To improve my communication and presentation skills, I also started to engage more in conversations with my other peers, whether it is during discussion sessions in class, or after class.

With these critical thinking skills, I would like to use these in the future to help with my career. I believed that by exercising critical thinking, I can structure the way I express my ideas effectively and objectively to my future clients. To further improve my critical thinking skills, I would engage on a deeper, more intellectual level with my seniors in school and in the future, with my coworkers and supervisors.

For our research project, we have to come up with a new modification on a product that does not exist on the market. Throughout this project, I learned about the importance of teamwork. I initially wanted to integrate a pill crusher into a medicine dispenser as there is no medicine dispenser that has a pill crusher on the market. But as we got further into our research, we found out that most medications are not designed to be taken in this way and can cause serious side effects. It can also prevent the medicine from working properly and alter how our body processes and responds to the drug. My group and I spent days brainstorming ideas, we each came up with several ideas, but every idea has been critically analyzed and rejected. We gave our opinion regarding the flaws and timeline for the project. As we built on each other's abilities and knowledge, we came up with the idea of implementing liquid-form medication in a medicine dispenser that can only dispense pills because there are no such dispensers currently on the market.

Hence, I learned about the importance of a team. Everyone is different, we think differently, and we have different knowledge and different skills. I am sure if I were alone, I would not be able to come up with the idea of implementing liquid-form medication in a medicine dispenser. With many brains, we are able to create solutions, make fewer mistakes as we correct each other, and increase the potential for innovation as we all have different perspectives.

During the brainstorming session, I learned that I was quite scared to criticize the weakness or problem of my groupmates’ suggestions. I am grateful that my teammates pointed it out and I managed to give some good criticism that improved our modification of the medicine dispenser. This experience changed my view of learning. Before this, I only listened and keep my thoughts to myself but through this experience, I discovered that we should all express our thoughts because even if it is a criticism, we can use it to further improve our product or project before showcasing it to the public eye.

With these improved critical reflections and communication skills, I would like to use them in the future when working with my coworkers and make the best possible product before presenting it to our clients or superiors.