Final Project: Introduction and Submission link

Throughout this course we have briefly explored several techniques that have the potential to deepen your wellbeing. For our final project, you will be expanding your knowledge and experience of a wellbeing technique. This can be a new practice, or one which you would like to do research on. This project has several key steps:

First, pick a well-being practice. A list of potential practices are at the end of these assignment guidelines. You are welcome to pick a practice that is not listed here, if you have any doubt, feel free to contact me for clarification.  

Second, become familiar with how this practice is carried out by doing background research; you might read online articles, popular press book chapters, or watch YouTube videos.

Third, find and read at least 3 academic journal articles that discuss the benefits of this practice. As a strategy, you might use Google Scholar, and put the practice name in quotation marks, i.e. “walking meditation” and then add another phrase or set of search terms in separate quotes i.e. “wellbeing” “quality of life.” Including terms in quotes will require that the search brings you back articles that contain those phrases explicitly.

Fourth, for at least two weeks, begin engaging with this practice. Use the online journal to document your process, and what comes up, as you explore this new practice. Four one-paragraph journal entries are required for this active-learning part of the project.  Go to the Discussions page to upload your journal entries there.

Fifth, create a max-3 minute Public Service Announcement video about the practice you have identified. Your audience are university undergraduate students, and your goal is to communicate the science-based benefits of this practice, how to go about engaging with it, and what benefits they might expect to experience. End you PSA with a slide/screenshot of the three articles you read AND two questions for others to reflect on as they engage in this practice. Your questions and references will provide a guide so that others interested in this practice can deepen their own understanding.

If you have never created a PSA before, don’t worry. It can be quite simple if you’d like, narrating over power point slides. You can also choose to get creative with it, adding music and video content. You might begin by looking at examples of other student PSA’s from YouTube (such ashttps://youtu.be/DD1NEDIszrc (Links to an external site.)), you’ll then want to plan your PSA, sketch out your storyboard, film it/or create a screen capture if you would like to narrate over slides, gather other fair use resources to enhance it like background music, and edit it.

General PSA Guidelines

Either video or audio (I.e. radio) based

Introduces, provides instructions to, and explains the benefits of a well-being practice.

List of Potential Wellbeing Practices
(Shauna Shapiro’s book “Good Morning, I love you” describes many of these practices and offer citations for research articles that explore the benefits of these practices)

Tonglen

Cultivating awe

Radical responsibility

Loving kindness meditation

Compassion

Shifting perspective

Emotion regulation

Acceptance

Self-compassion

Conscious eating

Mindful decision making

Mindful parenting

Interdependence meditation

“Good morning, I love you”

Self-actualization

• Empathic joy (Mudita)
  Forgiveness

Seeing the good in others

• Cultivating generosity

Gratitude letters

• “Three good things”

Smiling meditation