Management, Personal and Study Skills

In this section of my assessment for the Study Skills assignment, I will be producing a report, which will outline the contribution that I made within my group in our presentation on ‘Northern Ireland'. The presentation was conducted by a small group from the Business and Management Studies class in Lancaster. The group consisted of five individuals, namely Chris Gallagher, Peter Stephenson, David Long, Arif Patel and myself. The purpose of the presentation was to inform the audience of the main aims and objectives of the assignment, and educate the audience of the main findings of the written report and country analysis. Furthermore, the group believed that it would be beneficial to enlighten the audience of the conclusions and recommendations that we had made which related to the findings. Within the group, I contributed a great deal in the planning and writing up of the assignment. Our group communicated amongst itself both efficiently and effectively. Although we gathered on only the one occasion outside academic hours, this was extremely constructive as we were able to discuss and arrange the nine distinct sections of the presentation. The reason we were unable to meet up more often is due to the fact that I did not have any contact numbers for the people in my group. This is because I was initially intending to work with a group from the Business and Management Studies class in Carlisle, which is where I have been studying the module. However, due to certain circumstances this was altered. Despite such impediments, the presentation was successfully completed before the deadline date to the anticipated standard. In order to bring the presentation together, we firstly completed the written section of the assessment, in which we again as a group were required to conduct a country analysis of Northern Ireland, which would cover all the aspects mentioned subsequently in this report. Accordingly, we condensed the information contained in our assignments, and utilised the most important points in order to produce an effective presentation. Whilst completing the written section of the assignment, we met up on more than one occasion to complete the assessment. As a result of the meetings, we decided to make a PowerPoint presentation of our chosen island, which was Northern Ireland and the various applicable issues. Our presentation was required to last for no longer than fifteen minutes and no less than ten minutes. Upon completion of the presentation, it was apparent that most of our presentation ran according to plan and the learning outcomes that were outlined before the presentation had been met. During the group discussions, we chose to write about different aspects of Northern Ireland, namely the aims, the economic overview, the political stability and the primary export strengths. In the group, my role was to explicate the social issues in Northern Ireland. The presentation also included information on tourism, the transport infrastructure, the conclusion of our presentation and finally the recommendations we made on Northern Ireland. My role within the group of the nine sections comprised of the social issues and a point from the conclusion section in the presentation. Firstly, I decided to research the various social issues of Northern Ireland, and aimed to expand on a number of these issues. I investigated these certain aspects by using different types of research. The group decided on using OHT's and Microsoft PowerPoint in order to communicate effectively with our audience. Therefore, the research, which I collected on the social issues of Northern Ireland, which was my role in the presentation, was put on both OHT's and Microsoft PowerPoint. My role in the work of the group for the presentation involved introducing the facts of the social issues of Northern Ireland and writing up on one of the four points in the conclusion, which was linked to the social issues. I explained the four main social issues to the class and why these points exist. (See Appendix 1). The remaining sections were completed by the other members my group. We all contributed to reading the conclusion and recommendations' slides in which we alternatively talked through all the points. Firstly, Craig Gallagher talked the class through the first two slides on the aims of Northern Ireland and the economic overview of the country, whereas David Long covered the political stability and the tourism sections. Peter Stephenson covered the section on the primary export strengths, leaving the transport infrastructure to Arif Patel. These members of the group also took certain points and went into detail when discussing their sections for the presentation. At the end of our presentation, we held a plenary session in which our audience were asked if they would like to ask any questions which could be answered on the different aspects which we discussed in our presentation. This demonstrated the audience's understanding of the information presented. The structure of our presentation included the clear use of Microsoft PowerPoint and the use of OHT's. this enabled the group to communicate more effectively with the audience, as it allowed visual aids to correspond with the verbal communication. The whole presentation was conducted around the use of the above in order for the audience to understand thoroughly the purpose of the presentation. I believe that my group successfully informed the class on our topic of Northern Ireland which we had chosen as a group with a mutual agreement. We chose our country from the list that had been given to us. As we held a plenary session towards the end of our presentation in which the class could ask our group questions, this allowed everybody a chance to express their views. All the discussions contained correct answers by the audience, which illustrated that we had covered all the topics effectively and resourcefully. If I was to carry out this particular, or any other, presentation in the future, I would ensure that my PowerPoint document is working well because in our presentation there was a problem with the PowerPoint, due to a technical hitch. This was the only aspect of the presentation which did not go according to plan. As a result of this, we were required to read off our print outs, which we had created in case of such circumstances. Another thing that I would change in the future is to be more organised and time efficient. This is due to the fact that we had to rush to put the presentation together, as we had all worked on our different sections of the assignment individually on our own. Therefore, when we met up we were required to organise our final piece, prior to the presentation. In addition, I feel that getting to know the members of a group and building a relationship between each other is essential, as it can cause some awkwardness when you do not know all the members. However, I was fortunate, as I knew some of them from my Economics class. Even though I did not know all of the members, we worked well together as a group and did not face any issues, which would have made it difficult for us to work as a team. To conclude this report, I feel that we were very successful in informing and motivating the class on our subject. The reason for this is that the class met the objectives, which we outlined at the beginning of our presentation and the met the criteria set in order to pass this section of the assignment.