Reflecting on Group Presentations: Strategies, Evaluation, and Development

This reflective essay examines the process of a group presentation on Samsung, critically evaluating the strategies employed and identifying areas for improvement. It utilizes Gibb's reflective cycle to assess the presentation's effectiveness and outlines strategies for future development. The essay explores the advantages and limitations of group presentations, highlighting the importance of audience engagement, clear communication, and effective use of visual aids.

English Academic Skills 2
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Table of Contents
Introduction....................................................................................................................................3
Reflect on the process of your group presentations. Identify and critically evaluate the
strategies used, and indicate how you will address areas for development.......................4
Introduction....................................................................................................................................4
Conclusion......................................................................................................................................8
References list...............................................................................................................................9
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Introduction
Group presentations are considered the most effective ways of communicating ideas
and information to a target audience. Our team in relation to Samsung gave a group
presentation. The group consisted of five people among whom we shared different
perspectives and views.
The importance of this group presentation is that it let my team of five members
collaborate together to form interesting learning material for the audience in the form of
audiovisual content.
The reflective essay would draw on this group presentation and evaluate its
significance.
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Reflect on the process of your group presentations. Identify and critically
evaluate the strategies used, and indicate how you will address areas for
development.
Introduction
Group presentations are usually summative assessments of topics that require students
to address the core issues of certain topics, through means of multimedia and text
combined in MS power point presentations (Darling-Hammond et al., 2015).
A group presentation was made by our team of five members on Samsung. The
presentation discussed how Samsung is a technological leader in its field and is
currently recording growth in sales due to its creative innovation strategies. The
presentation included other vital facts and figures as well as assessments of its future
progress given by our team members.
There are multiple ways group presentations can be structured or planned but one of
the most effective is to set objectives of the presentation at the outset. The objectives
that I set for our group presentation helped us reflect on the following points:
 Reviewing strategies of engaging our audience
 Learning how to use power words and write cue cards within the presentation
(Fisher and Frey, 2015)
 Learning how to give appropriate body language during the presentation
 Rehearsing the presentation to review the above.
After the objectives are set, we decided on strategizing the kind of approach we wanted
to go for, to present our topic. We finalized the ‘excellent approach’ for our group
presentation which was panned around the following:
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 Having a confident body language throughout the presentation
 Using highly effective communication skills
 Speaking like giving a performance
 Maintaining eye contact with the audience
 Using only appropriate gestures (Mehrabian, 2017)
 Using excellent pronunciation and diction
 Telling the audience some shocking facts at the beginning
 Indulging in an Q&A session after the presentation
When we delivered the presentation according to the above approach, we realized that
the experience had been rewarding. I personally understood that it is very important to
keep the audience glued to what I am saying by triggering reactions and questions
during the presentation.
Once the group presentation has been given, its success can be assessed by reviewing
through the Gibb’s reflective cycle. According to Nunn et al., (2016), Gibb’s reflective
cycle is a six staged reflection process where presenters can measure the acceptance
of their message. The cycle is explained below:
Stage 1 – Description of what happened (who spoke what and where)
Stage 2 – Assessment of the feelings during the presentation (assessing the initial gut
reaction and feelings occurring through the presenter’s mind. It also includes
understanding if the feelings affected the presentation or not)
Stage 3 – Evaluating the good and bad experiences (Realizing what felt good or bad
during the presentation and if it helped improve further delivery or not)
Stage 4 – Analysis of the situation (Comparing the theoretical values of presenting with
the practical experience of delivering it. It is thinking about what happened during the
presentation)
Stage 5 – Conclusion and recommendation of what has been done (This includes
assessing what has the presenter learnt from the experience and what else could have
been done to make it better)
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Stage 6 – Creating an action plan (This includes creating a full proof action plan of the
future strategy if the same situation happens next time)
My group presentation had implemented stages 1, 3, 4 and 5 but stages 2 and 6 were
not implemented. The feelings during presentation on Samsung were not assesses and
an action plan for a future group presentation is yet to be developed.
My group presentation had implemented the excellent approach for presentation but
there was lack of Q&A from the audience. After analyzing through the Gibb’s reflective
cycle, I came to know that we had to consistently initiate questions for them to respond
and participate in the session. It was then when we realized that our presentation
needed to be emphasized more so that the key points had been clear to the audience.
We realized that the following aspects had to be taken into consideration:
 Using pauses wherever required giving the ‘sinking in’ time to the audience
(Palmer, 2015)
 Being more animated while speaking and speaking more loudly
 Using more visual aid to make the presentation more interactive
 Introducing the audience with some relevant background information
 Showing samples or prototype wherever necessary (Etherington, 2018)
 Using more pictures and graphics than words or text
By our giving a group presentation, I understood that the advantages of group
presentations are the following:
 An opportunity to interact directly with my target audience
 The chance to receive feedback and reactions
 The chance to emphasize key points concisely through the use of audio and
visual aid
 The opportunity to gauge the level of understanding of the key points among the
audience (Goyder, 2014)
 The chance to assess the level of acceptance of the messages delivered through
the presentation
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Conclusion
The reflection that I gathered from the group presentation experience is that
presentations can be made effective by careful planning and designing of the usage of
words and expressions. I have also realized that there are limitations to presentations
too. The following are the limitations:
 The message can be heard only once
 The target audience is of a limited size
 One cannot include a lot of background information due to time constraint
 The speaker’s pace of speaking often does not match with the understanding
level of the target audience as they might not be familiar with the topic
 The presentation can be excellent in content but the effectiveness of its delivery
relies completely on the speaker.
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Conclusion
Group presentations are helpful in interacting directly with the target audience as it
helps the presenters to gather feedback and follow ups. The assignment has
established the reflective practice of assessing group presentations using the example
of the Gibb’s reflective cycle. The assignment has evaluated the group presentation
detailing the advantages and limitations of the group presentations in general.
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References list
Darling-Hammond, L., Barron, B., Pearson, P.D., Schoenfeld, A.H., Stage, E.K.,
Zimmerman, T.D., Cervetti, G.N. and Tilson, J.L., 2015. Powerful learning: What we
know about teaching for understanding. John Wiley & Sons.
Fisher, D. and Frey, N., 2015. Checking for understanding: Formative assessment
techniques for your classroom. ASCD.
Mehrabian, A., 2017. Nonverbal communication. Routledge.
Nunn, R., Brandt, C. and Dhabi, A., 2016. A Phenomenological Approach to Teaching
Reflective Writing. English Scholarship Beyond Borders, 2(1), pp.130-142.
Palmer, E., 2015. Digitally Speaking: How to Improve Student Presentations. Stenhouse
Publishers.
Etherington, B., 2018. Presentation skills for quivering wrecks. Marshall Cavendish
International Asia Pte Ltd.
Goyder, C., 2014. Gravitas: Communicate with Confidence, Influence and Authority.
Random House.
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