PART ONE:
January 15, 2019
- I began my first year university as a shy individual. As I began attending my classes of my first semester I began to realise how important oral participation is in the university community. As a shy individual, oral participation was my enemy as my anxiety skyrocketed when I spoke in front of my peers. While giving presentations I get red in the face, shaky hands, and I often look like a deer in headlights, or so that is what I imagine myself to look like, causing anxiety even thinking about a presentation I have to do in the future. I prefer to learn by listening or reading and conveying my thoughts through assignments and not through discussion. I have continued to struggle with oral participation to this day as it is a valued learning process for university students and my classes continue to involve this element in the grading process.
2. I began my first year university as a shy individual. As I began attending classes, I realised how important oral participation was within the university community. I have always struggled with public speaking, partly because I was never forced to practice. Now that I am in my fourth year university, and have been forced to practice, I have began to gain confidence in my public speaking, allowing my anxieties be less severe when I have to present a project, or tell the class a fun fact about myself. Forcing myself to practice oral speaking, despite my anxieties, has allowed me to gain confidence in my speaking as well as gave me confidence when speaking amongst my friends and family allowing me to voice more of my opinions. Practising public speaking will also benefit me in my future as I strive to be an educator. Being able to publicly and thoroughly explain my thoughts in front of a classroom will allow me to thrive in my profession, allowing students to understand the material I teach them.
PART TWO: Reflection
February 25th, 2019
What are the major similarities and differences between your two story lines? In what ways do they represent alternative ways of looking at the same events/experiences? For example, is one the story you tell yourself and is the other the story you tell others?
As I re-read and reflected on my two stories of learning I have come to understand why I wrote them in such contrast. These two stories are two alternate ways of how to feel towards a presentation, one negative and one positive, one I currently feel and one I strive for. I came to understand that my first story is how I really feel towards presentations and public speaking. As I have presented my group project on two articles for class I now realise I experienced the feelings described in my first story. This shows me that I still have work on myself when it comes to public speaking in attempt to become comfortable presenting. My second story of learning, I now reflect, is how I want to feel towards public speaking. I wish for public speaking to be a skill I possess and can master instead of something that brings me anxiety. This would help improve my confidence and is a skill I would like to master as it would allow me to stay focused on my work instead of being constantly concerned days before my presentation. I will be able to attempt this with my solo presentation on my research paper in the upcoming month, I look forward to facing my anxieties in attempt to better myself and my future studies. Writing these two stories and reflecting back on them has given me more perspective on myself and what I want to achieve before I begin my future career as an elementary teacher. Although I do not face the same anxieties when I public speak in front of children, I know once I get into the elementary teaching program I will have to present often in front of my peers.
For a reflection on Life stories of Learning refer to “Learning the History of Education” tab.