My Class Participation

A) Timeliness and Completeness of Class Participation:

With all the aspects needed to be covered and followed in regard to timeliness and

completeness of class participation I feel that I have done better than the first half of the

semester. When I completed discussion boards or quizzes, it was done earlier in the

week. I did although miss two discussion boards and two quizzes, due to personal

reasons. But when it did come to finishing the content and spending time on the course

content, I can say that I spent more hours and achieved higher grades on the quizzes

doing so. In the first half I received 80% on each quiz, but in the second half I received

over 80% on each quiz. The expected time to complete the course material each week

takes about 2 ½ - 3 hours, and I have spent between 1.5 - 2.5 hours per week on the

course content. Compared to last semester where I spent about 4.5 hours in total, this

semester I spent around 11.5 hours on the course content. Each time that I did complete

the course content I completed every practice activity that was available and completed

every discussion post expect for two. I wasn’t able to respond to peers who made

comments on my posts because when I received a response it was as later in the day on

Sunday. As I stated early, in this half of the course I tried my best to complete the course

content and discussion posts/course activities earlier in the week and at a time that others

were able to read and respond to.

B) Posting Content:

All of my participation including the quizzes and the discussion board

demonstrated comprehension of the course material. I used personal examples as well as

information and examples that I learned from the course material. I tied back all of my
 work to that same weeks, or the previous weeks content and demonstrated it in a way that

others can connect to them. This also was done in the replies and comments that were

made on my peer’s posts. I noticed that on my posts I opened up and made connections to

my personal life. Also, when I responded to many of my peers, I used personal examples

and asked questions that I genuinely wanted to know the answer to. The conversations I

had with the others not only helped them to learn better but also made me think more and

connect more with them. I did this by asking questions that would create a conversation

and create a deeper level of thinking for both of us. I believe that the 3CQ model helped

with asking questions that had my peers think deeper and reflect on the topic, this

contributed overall to a positive online community with good conversations about

happiness and wellbeing.

C) Self- Evaluation:

In terms of course participation I believe I did well in using my personal life

experiences and connecting it to the course content that we learned. Also, I feel that I did

a better job at learning and understanding the course material, this is shown through my

quiz grades and through the time spent on the course content. By completing the course

content, itself I feel that I learned a lot, especially when the videos had the breaks in-

between with comments or questions being asked, it gave me a chance to reflect and

think about what was discussed in the video. The activities in each section followed by

the discussion board also allowed me to connect with the course content and my peers’

views. It gave me different outlooks and views that also made me think deeper into the

content. The only difficulty I had was keeping up with the course work. Honestly

speaking I was having trouble keeping up with the weekly discussion boards and quizzes
with everything that I was dealing with personally, including work and school life. I

wasn’t able to find a solid balance in time to complete every content discussion. I could

improve my participation by finding a balance in personal, work and school life and by

planning well ahead by scheduling and putting my work in blocks in an agenda to keep

me organized and allow me to manage my time better. I learned that I have a negative

habit of exhaustion, I have been taking on too many tasks at once and been overwhelming

myself this whole semester. I also learned that I am better at completing the course

content and quizzes as an individual and had more trouble sharing my thoughts and

opinions as a group. Lastly, I learned that I learn better with auditory and visuals, the

video presentations helped me understand the course content the most. When it came to

happiness and well-being, I learned that I can truly be happy after finding my purpose in

life and that purpose should involve helping others. I also learned that we as a society

have so much to learn about happiness and it is not just an individual aspect, but

happiness can be generated on a global level (three degrees). Lastly, I learned that even

though we have a happiness set-point we can achieve a higher level of happiness through

different methods and strategies. One that stuck out the most to me was being positive

and thinking about the good more than the bad.

My Best Points

I believe that the post that I’ve shared above is my best post. I used much of the course

content that was learned from week 10, technology and happiness. This post in particular

describes my efforts in understanding how social media has affected my happiness during the

pandemic and what I’ve done thus far to change that. I incorporated learned material such as the

impact technology has on our relationships and how its shaped itself to be our “real world”. I

also used what I’ve learned from the videos on technology and happiness which was how social
media has started to make us more emotionally shallow and the unwanted stress that it brings in

to our lives. I’ve also included the concept of bringing my best self to the social media outlet,

and how I went about doing so. I feel that I have used many personal examples and relatable

examples for the online community to better understand and connect to my post. This overall

brings about a positive online community for them to look towards and use as an example to also

make some life changes to better their happiness.

 Above is a post that I have written as a reply to one of my peer’s original posts. It is also

from week 10, technology and happiness discuss how social media during the pandemic has

affected Nicholas’ happiness. We were both shared that we use music or a podcast to help us

through the negative impacts of social media. I also went on to sharing an additional strategy that

I use to help me through the negatives of social media, which was to focus more on inspirational

and motivational pages or feeds. I feel that we made a great connection, by opening up and

sharing parts of our personal life and connecting it to the course content. I also asked a question

at the end that would allow Nicholas to think deeper and see how else using social media has

affected him and the society by using the fact that it too can affect our face to face connection

with people. In the conversation I see that we both demonstrated comprehension of the course

content and built a positive online community by using real life examples and connecting with

each other.
My Class Participation Grade

If I were to assign myself a grade based on the grading criteria outlined in the reflection

assignment instructions, I feel that I deserve a “B”. I was able to complete much of the course

content in a timely manner and it was clear that I read/watched the course connect adequately.

This was shown when I looked at my progress in the class. I spent between 1.5 and 2.5 hours per

week in the course to read and complete the content, activities, discussion board postings and the

quizzes. I found that I did my best to participate on the discussion boards somewhat regularly

and done so early in the week rather than later. This also gave my peers enough time to read and

reply to my posts for us to have discussion. Even though some posts and replies were missing,

when I did post and reply I used the 3CQ model, personal examples and the course content that I

learnt. I was able to complete almost all online activities in a consistent manner, also done earlier

in the week for the most part. One thing that I noticed the most about my posts were that I used a

lot of personal, real-life situations for my peers to connect with and better understand my posts.

Also, I used several different ideas and strategies that my peers can use in their day to day lives

to better their happiness. For example, cleaning up their social media outlet (Instagram) to view

more inspirational and motivational posts or the nursing students to start looking for

commonalities in order to be more empathetic as a nurse. Overall, I feel that I have improved

greatly from the first half of the semester and demonstrated a fair to good comprehension of the

course material on my online activity.