GLBTQ Presentation Critique (A Presenter's View)

Note: This is structured a little differently than my last critique. I thought sections would help me express my feelings about my and my group members' presentation. I also wanted to apologize for eating during the presentation. Helon and I had some issues with Varsity.

Overall Impression:
I thought the presentation went ok. Things throughout were a bit uneven and not very well coordinated, but the information we did want to get across seemed like it did. I was extremely happy with the discussion and the thoughts of all the professors that were there. If we had to chance to go back in time and do it all over, I think we could make the presentation even better.

Things that were Good about the Presentation:
The Discussions: Truthfully, I thought that there would be little to no discussion during the major information section of our presentation. Yet, it was probably the best part of the whole thing. We have a very opinionated class, and I really enjoyed hearing every minute of it. Overall, it added a much needed spice to our presentation. Also, I think everyone benefited from all that was said by the audience.

The Reading: I really enjoyed the reading and thought it was a great overview of our presentation. The discussion questions attached to it were good and got the class talking. I feel like that helped break the ice a bit. In other words, everything attached to the reading was beneficial to the presentation.

The Guests: I thought that the professor from the Physical Therapy department was a good addition to the presentation. She really helped bring some of our ideas to light. She also helped us as presenters do a better job of doing justice to the material.

Things that did not go so Well:
The Discussions: As I said above, I thought there would be little to no talking during the informational part of the presentation, and because of that, I know I was not prepared for the amount of talking. I actually think none of us were prepared for the amount of participation that happened. Our lack of preparation was definitely evident in the fact that we went extremely over our time limit and had to rush through certain sections

The Video: The video in itself was a good idea on paper, and it was planned perfectly into the presentation. Yet, I think we could've scratched it or shortened it somehow. This would have allowed us to get to our comprehensive discussion that was planned at the end. I feel like things would not have been affected too much if the video was scratched or if only segments were shown.

Mary: I hate to call her out like this, but there were times when she did not help the presentation. I honestly felt like that she was upstaging me during my part of the presentation when she would constantly interrupt. Some of the things she said were valid and somewhat needed, but some of the other stuff could have been held until the discussion at the end. Also, I felt like we lost a lot of time and some attention when she did interrupt. Overall, a lot of the things she said did not help the presentation and hurt us in many other departments in the respect to time. On a side note, I am extremely upset that she interrupted Brenna to ask about when the video was going to be shown. That was extremely impolite and not needed.

Information: I do know that the law part of mine could have been more detailed. When I first started out with my information, I had everything after the choice debate organized into negatives and positives and use those to paint the overall picture. Yet, I ended up scratching that and putting everything into the sections that were presented. I also thought we did not have enough information on the meso part of our topic. I feel like this happened because there was so much focus on the video and not enough on the information. Yet, I really don't know since all of us had different sections, which probably also added to everything.

Talking: I will say that I know I had some issues with speaking during my presentation. Part of the reason was the fact that I am getting over being sick, and it has been messing with the volume of my voice. The other part is the fact that I was a tad nervous about the whole thing, which does effect my speaking level. It usually doesn't happen when it comes to math stuff. It's just a problem with other things.

The Guests: My only complaint concerns the other professor and her children. There was one child who was somewhat distracting and needed some control from the mother.

Preparation: As I have mentioned, we were definitely unprepared for a lot of things, and I know that it showed. It was definitely a combination of many factors both in our control and out of our control. For the things that were in our control (discussions, other presenters talking, etc), I know we could have done better to reign things in and move on. I know that I personally had a problem reigning in the discussion. The main reason for this was the fact that there was even

Issues before the Presentation:
Meetings: We only met once after the reading meeting to discuss this presentation. Understandably, fall break got in the way and schedules were somewhat difficult to find common time. Yet, I know we could have met at least twice. I did spearhead getting together the week after fall break, but apparently, Mary was not getting my emails while Brenna was. I don't know the truth behind Mary's claims, but she tends to make it a lot for things so it's hard for me to believe her.


I think that's about it for the critique. I really do think that this presentation went ok, but it could have been so much better. The good thing though is I will use my peers' critiques to learn from this experience.

Field Placement

At this current moment, I really don't know how I feel about this placement. The main reason for this is that I have just started actually being a presence in the classroom. During my first week, the teacher placed me in the back of the classroom, and I just observed. Last week, I was actually introduced to the students and have been able to help out. Overall, I'm just happy to be back in a math classroom that isn't at the college level.
As for my co-op teacher, I have mixed feelings about her. I think she is a really good teacher, and she does an excellent job integrating technology in the classroom. Yet, there have just been somethings that she has said that makes me a bit discouraged. For example, the other day we were talking about the success of the lesson that she had taught that day. She mentioned that she had to skip some stuff on the curriculum because it was apparently way too challenging for the class. She also said that she was going to teach the kids how to pass a multiple-choice test. I felt very discouraged and a bit disappointed. These kids need more, and those things she said are not it. I just felt like she was not looking past the fact these students are either repeaters, ELLs, or EC. So far that has been the only thing that has made me a bit discouraged. I have agreed on several other things that she has told me so that's why there are mixed feelings.
In the end, time will tell if this is going to either be another excellent practicum or a bust. I really hope it is the first.

Linguistic Diversity Presentation Response

Overall, I thought the presentation went pretty well. It was very well organized, and the information was very concise. The presenters seemed to know their information and did a very good job conveying it to the audience. Even though I did enjoy the presentation, there were a couple of things that I didn't like and thought could be improved. For me, the beginning could have been a little shorter. It was a great hook, and it did get my attention. The video was a fantastic, but it could've been shorter. There was a point where I just shut down and could not wait for it to be over with. I also thought that some of the material could have been conveyed in a more interesting way. There were times when the information was taught in a very cut and dry way, and I started to lose my interest. I felt somewhat disengaged. If the group had another chance, I would suggest them to be a little more engaging. It was really interesting information, but it was presented in a very uninteresting way. In the end, I did learn a lot even though there were some problems.

Foreign Language

Note: I did not realize that we had a blog until I went on Blackboard to find the information on the Case Study. I apologize for the lateness of this blog.

From about eighth grade to the fall semester of my freshmen year, I was constantly in some kind of Spanish class. In high school, I was pushed by my parents to exceed the 2 class requirement, and I ended up taking five classes. Until about Spanish 4, I had done really well learning the language. I did not really need to study, and I did pretty well on everything. The only problem was my shyness got in the way of actually speaking the language. I knew how to speak it, but I just never broke my comfort zone to actually speak it. When Spanish 4 started, things got a bit harder. My Spanish 4 and AP Spanish Language classes were a bit difficult. Spanish 4 was difficult because it involved reading in the language and answering questions. These two tasks were quite difficult for me because my years of not studying caused me to not know a lot of vocabulary. Spanish 5 was a bit easier, but we had to speak the language, which I was not comfortable with. Even with these set backs, I did pretty well overall in my high school Spanish career.
When I came to Elon, my success in Spanish kind of diminished. The biggest part of that was the speaking. There were points in the class where I either had to speak to the class or to the teacher. Luckily, the class part was not as bad since I was usually in a group. Yet, the face to face teacher ones were terrible. I realized towards the end of that class that I expressed myself better in written form than oral form. This drove me to do better on written assignments than my oral assignments. In the end, I got a B in the class.
Since that class my freshmen year, I have not been able to take another Spanish class. I really wish that I could because I really love the language, but my schedule does not allow for it. If I was to take a class now, I think I would do much better with the speaking part, which would help me in the long run. Hopefully in the future I'll be able to take a couple of classes and get back into the language.