BLOG POST # 6: Reflection on Principles of Communication/ Teamwork on Programming and Problem-Solution Projects

At last, my ‘strife’ has come along
My 'late nights' are over
And life is like a song
Oh, yeah, at last!

Truly the journey of our CG1102 and CG1413 modules has been memorable and insightful. Ranging from brainstorming over problem solving, presenting and defending our ideas to reflecting over the hiccups of the past, we students have evolved from “taciturn listeners” to confident “attention seekers” dying to speak out and voice our opinion.

Let me summarize what we’ve learnt over these few months with the 7Cs of effective communication and teamwork.

COURTESY – Throughout this module we were made to interact with each other, collaborate and cooperate while working in teams and thus enhance our listening and inter-personal skills. We learnt to respect each other’s opinion, faced and dealt with conflicting ideas and in the process, also learnt about different cultures and thought processes.

CORRECTNESS – We worked together to solve various problems, put forward our ideas and proposals for their solutions and discussed on the most optimum one. Working in teams helped analyse all aspects of the problem and thus prejudices, limited knowledge and other weaknesses could be avoided.

CONCISENESS – Whether it was while presenting the problem solving analysis, or defending our CG1102 Group Projects or on reflecting on our progress, we learnt to be brief and yet precise.

CLARITY- Belonging to a group with members of different cultural backgrounds, it was essential for us to be clear while expressing our point of view. We learnt to overcome any language barrier and work together to complete the task at hand. Watching our oral presentation videos, we realised how important a role clarity plays, for the idea proposed to be properly understood.

COHERENCE – While preparing for each assignment, we were asked to systematically plan out the work involved, prepare agendas and Gantt Charts, discuss thoroughly and ensure a healthy exchange and intermixing of ideas and a good level of understanding between each member of the team so that our individual submissions would be coherent and inter-related.

CONCRETENESS – It is not only important to express yourself cogently, but also to defend your proposal/solution with valid arguments and polite rebuttal if its questionability is challenged, which we learnt through our oral defence session.

COMPLETENESS – As they say ‘Practice makes a man perfect’ and indeed we have managed to greatly improve our oral, critical and interpersonal skills through the various presentations, conferences and group discussions that we’ve had in this module. From nervous wrecks, we have emerged confident and poised, ready to face the world and its people.

Kudos to Ms Brenda for bearing with us. If it were not for her keen eye for identifying our strengths and her positive comments, all this would not have been possible.