One of my favorite aspects of this course is not only getting to learn about how to do things, but also getting to learn how to teach things. This is definitely the case with coaching the freshmen on their oral reports. As a junior mechanical engineer, my experience in giving oral reports is still quite limited. Naturally, before this course, I never had an opportunity to practice coaching others on their oral report skills. But this is exactly the situation we were in for class on Tuesday.
Dr. Tracy Volz helped us to develop these skills. We watched some example senior design presentations to practice watching for different aspects and writing careful notes of what was important. We also role played giving feedback on writing samples to make sure we had a good balance of encouragement and constructive criticism. One thing I discovered was that I tend to be a little too up-front with my observations, often leading to discouragement on the part of the recipient. This was something I was careful to avoid in giving feedback to the Forearm Group on Tuesday.
Listening to the Forearm Group present, I was very impressed by how well prepared they were. But no matter how good their presentation was, I still was able to think of many things to comment on. It was a challenge to be methodical in sharing what I thought was important while also being careful to present only as much as would be beneficial for their team to improve their presentation. Over all, I felt good about the encouragement I was able to give the team, and was thrilled by how receptive the team was. It is empowering to step into such a leadership role in this class and see the students listen so carefully to the things I say!