Reflection 3: Program Postmortem

Reflection on the program, things to be improved, and my action plan (based on Gibbs' Reflection Cycle)

We first conducted an interview on four postgraduate students to identify the issues they face. The interview was conducted via Webex and WhatsApp because these mediums were convenient during this pandemic time. We found that the key issue (among other issues) student face was academic writing and publication. To help students with this, we decided to organise a talk on writing for publication. We then searched for a suitable speaker for the talk. We found one visiting Associate Professor in the School of Economics, Finance and Banking, who has a reputable track record in publication. We then wrote a proposal and sent it to School of Business Management’s Dean for her consideration. Once the proposal had been approved, we proceed with the invitation. We used UUM Corporate Communication department to help us disseminate the news. Finally, on November 9, 2020, we successfully organized the talk for 2 hours. 97 participants joined the talk. At the end of the talk, we obtained the feedback from the participants and we reflect on the feedback for future improvements. Based on the feedback, we found that the talk was beneficial to the students for their exposure in academic writing for publications.

I feel that the process that we went through is a proper process to identify and address issues facing postgraduate students. With a proper problem identification, we can address the issue more effectively. However, the process happened within a short period of time when we were quite rush in doing everything from the speaker search until the event day. We started the process quite late so everything was less organised. Furthermore, I also found that the talk was quite lengthy in some part that was not necessary to be that long. This made the participants felt dry with the talk.

Things that worked during the process was that the teamwork showed by the group members was exceptional. We played our own parts in performing interviews, searching for speaker, writing the proposal, and managing the talk. Things that did not work well was the fact that we started the process quite late. Otherwise, we could have a more organized event. We also did not have chance to brief the speaker on what to focus during the talk.

I think the reason that made our teamwork was great is because we know our own responsibility in fulfilling our task. However, because we were busy with other things (teaching, research, assignments), we failed to manage our time properly to spend on this assignment. Therefore, we had a short period of time to plan what was the best event we could organise to solve students’ problems. Nevertheless, I think that our talk was still successful to help students in their writing for publications.

There are two important things I learned from this project. First is about the importance of understanding our students. We need to understand our students’ problem before we can help them. We need to discuss with them and try our best to help them. In this project, I found that students are facing many problems when they do their PHD. It is part of our responsibility to help them. We can advise them to improve themselves and we can also ask them to join any program that can benefit them. Second, we need to plan properly if we want to do any activity. This is crucial to make sure the event is well organized and it benefits the participants at the maximum level.

My action plan is that: 1) I will always communicate with my students to make sure they are okay and on track with their studies. Good communication makes differences. When we accept them as our students, it is our responsibility to help them getting their PHDs successfully. 2) I will improve my awareness on deadlines of any project/assignments/meetings etc to make sure I do them correctly and effectively.