Personal Reflections on Module Feedback

105MC – Key Concepts

I was marginally worried about the quality of this essay because it was the first essay I had written this academic year, and I felt out of practise. Thankfully I got a good mark and feedback. This made me more confident in my ability to write an essay and additionally allowed me to identify ways to improve and maintain this level.

A new element to me was exploring ideas through other scholar’s theories. I was therefore pleased to receive feedback that I ‘clearly and cleverly address key concepts through the lenses of scholars.’ I’m pleased that I have learnt to apply this skill so quickly into the year, because this will be key in developing my own knowledge. Research collated by one person can always be open to improvement, thus by opening myself up to more theories I will be able to develop my own in depth view of different concepts within the media industry. This is a skill that will be transferable to essays I will be writing in the future. I will also make sure that I continuously do further research, beyond the recommended minimum.  

In regards to constructive criticism, I was informed that my bibliography could have been improved. As I haven’t utilised the Harvard referencing system before, I did not expect it to be amazing. I will have to learn how to make sure this is completely accurate because otherwise I could get into trouble with copyright laws. Through practise I will learn how to automatically write bibliographies accurately.

181MC – Coursework 1 – Contemporary Theories

I felt more apprehensive towards this part of 181mc, mostly due to it being a group project but I’m very happy with my mark nonetheless. I had noted in my reflection on 105mc the importance of further research and it was present in this project again. Receiving more positive feedback about this has further solidified in my mind that reading beyond the required material is important and will be noticed.

On the disappointing side, it was noted in our feedback that our work did begin to deteriorate as the project continued, which became clear through multiple aspects such as repeated quotes, but also when the reflections became more descriptive than analytical. I think the issue could have been caused because we worked as a group to write the reflections on our group tasks, and we perhaps didn’t put as much effort as we should have in the later ones. In order to not make this mistake again, I should make an effort to keep team motivation up in order to make our best work but also should make sure that I’m submitting work that I’m completely satisfied with. If I’m not happy, I should inform my group so we can improve together.

181MC – Coursework 2

I was once again praised for linking my research to other scholars, with it being well executed. Due to this I’m quite happy to identify that one of my personal strengths is my ability to use other theorist’s ideas to develop my own research. My goal now is maintaining this achievement throughout essays I do in the future. A frequent worry of mine is for my writing to come across as confusing or for it to be quite basic. It was reassuring to be told within this feedback that I can write sophistically, which is a skill I will be sure to carry over to other writing tasks. Additionally, I’ve learnt that my language needs to be tidied up. This could be because I was out of practise with writing essays. Over time I should be able to improve my language and develop it to a high academic level.

182MC – Critical Media Methods

This was a big group project which can make elements difficult, but we worked successfully together and we were praised for it being a strong group effort. This module was centred on learning about different research methods and how to apply them successfully to the digital and physical world. With this in mind, it was good that we got praised for interacting with these methods by showing our experiences and what we learnt. I’ve learnt that in order to develop my knowledge, it is important to engage with the subjects being taught to the highest degree.

We also received feedback on the individual topics, which is useful information for me to retain and learn from, because I may be using these research methods in the future for other projects. The conclusion for Ethnography was ‘overly general’ which to me means we should have been more precise and detailed. I’ve learnt that a conclusion is an important part of any piece of work because it allows you the opportunity to bring everything you’ve talked about together and to clearly state the purpose. In 181mc, I decided that I needed to make sure group effort remained consistent throughout the project, so I was pleased to see that we received mostly positive feedback on our last group task because this shows to me that I achieved my goal.

180MC – Part 1 – Living in the Digital World

As this module was called living in the digital world, it was important that we engaged with the digital. It was reliving to see that we had done this in a clear and coherent way, but also that it engaged with cultural theories and conventions. Through the feedback we were informed that we ‘could improve the presentation by slightly slowing down the pace.’ As we had a lot of information to relay, the speech was fast in order to fit into the allocated time allowance. We could have achieved a slower pace if we had cut down certain elements of the video. This may have also allowed us to do an even further in-depth exploration of the use of red in films.

180MC – Part 2

Writing reading responses to texts was a task that didn’t really require me to construct a deep analysis of what the author was talking about, but rather allowed me to explore ideas and theories that I’d not discovered before. It was good to know that I was able to brilliantly analyse the authors thesis’s with context and examples. This is an important skill that can be transferred to research essays/reports.  My responses were well-written which shows my writing ability is still comprehensible, especially thanks to my use of examples to aid this. This is useful in informing me that using examples is an excellent way to help people understand what I am writing about, a skill I will use in future reports/essays.  

183MC – Media and Cultural Fields

This module is still ongoing, so I have no feedback to reflect on, but I can reflect on the course assessments. The nice part of this module is it starts off being quite hands on, much like most of the other group work modules, because we’re producing media content. The two tasks so far, a radio advertisement and a zine, are both forms of media I have yet to produce in a task before. This allows me to explore other forms of media and learn more about them. What’s also good is we have the freedom to make these about anything, which brings out my creative side. This makes it all the more enjoyable because it is about producing something I like. Doing something you enjoy is the most motivating thing. The essay at the end has me more worried, especially because it is to be written as a group. This form of final assessment will test my team-working abilities, which is an important skill to have. A lot of the modules have required me to work in a group but never to write an essay. This requires a lot of team decisions and advanced planning, but if it goes successfully than it will be a big achievement.

Add+vantage – Presentation Skills

The first and one of the most important parts of the feedback I received for this module was that I spoke with a confident and clear voice. I used to speak quite quietly so it was important to me for my own personal development, that I could speak clear enough for people to hear and understand. The only downside was that I did speak slightly too fast, but this was mostly due to the fact I was hyper aware of the time and also because I was still slightly nervous, so regulating my speaking speed wasn’t something I could focus on. However, while my voice may not have been perfect, my body language was a lot better according to my audience. I received feedback that I stood well and had good hand gestures. This is useful in keeping the audience’s attention on me and keeps them focused.

Content is just as important, because this is useful in keeping audiences engaged. I was praised for having a clear agenda that I explained at the beginning and the slides were informative and well designed. I was aware that I didn’t want to make my slides too overloaded, because then the audience’s attention would be on that rather than myself. The downside to having less on the slides was that it was more difficult to remember everything I needed to say, but with my addition of small note cards to refresh my memory and practise, it did become easier.