Lisa Rogers ePortfolio Communication Skills Reflection Form

This presentation, titled Being a Supportive Partner in the Developmental Journey,

was delivered as part of Loyola University Chicagos Resident Assistant and Learning

Community Assistant Training in January 2015. I believe that this artifact represents many

aspects of the Communication Skills learning outcome. Most notably it meets the goal of

effective oral communication skills because it was presented to 20 student staff members

who chose specifically to attend this session. The audience was made up of student staff

whom possessed a multitude of different identities. This presentation also required that

my co-presenter and I collaborate throughout the creation of the presentation. We

balanced each others ideas and opinions, applied theories from our studies, and

incorporated various academic topics into a presentation on supporting team members.

This presentation was effective because we took a different approach to how one

usually thinks about working on a team. We came to this idea because we had felt much

support from some of our classmates, while not from others, and we wanted to make sure

we prepared students to be the former. Though there are many student development

theories that could have been used in this presentation to represent the various

experiences of student staff members, we chose two foundational theories that spoke most

readily to general development. Incorporating the theories into this idea of being a

developmental partner was challenging and allowed me to meet the objective of

synthesis and critical thinking and analysis.

I really enjoyed having this opportunity to work with a colleague on a topic we both

care about, present to student staff, and apply what I am learning in the classroom to my

work. The presentations I have done in this program, but this one in particular, greatly

improved my oral communication skills.