Analysis and Self-Evaluation of Posts

Introduction

The posts have provided a unique way of learning and interacting with classmates. The richness of the diversity of the content is what made the posts so informative and allowed students to gain much-needed knowledge. I still remember my first post. I was timid almost as if uncertain of what was expected of me. I was afraid to make mistakes. It took me several minutes before I wrote my first sentence. I barely had adequate knowledge of APA. I remember the first post required students to provide statistics on hospitals. I found several sources with varying results and I could not decide which source was more credible than the other. The thought of citing or referencing my work barely crossed my mind. Fortunately, I got through that, and as weeks passed, and I read posts from other students, I realized I needed not to fear anything. I started expressing myself more confidently. I particularly liked the fourth post on leadership styles which was personalized and enabled me to reflect on the readings instead of just giving facts. In the end, as the course drew to a close, I enjoyed writing the posts, and it is clear from the word count which increased as I had more information to share. I went beyond answering the question to earn marks and saw it as an opportunity to share knowledge. I feel that I started answering the questions adequately.

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It is a shame that it took me up to the eighth post to start citing my work by providing references. This is one area I have had challenges in, and I look forward to improving my referencing skills. As I read the posts, I realized that all the answers I provided had sources and besides it being a requirement it is ethical to give the authors the credit they deserve. I would not want someone using my work and not giving me credit. It is a form of intellectual theft.

There was one post that really struck me: the one on motivation. It is easy to get answers to questions such as the number of US registered hospitals or who Don Berwick is. However, when asked what motivates you, one has to step back, forget about Google and reflect. Most of the time when studying we let the pressures of the assignments and exams take a toll on us, and we forget why we are doing this. Questions such as these serve as a wake-up call. In this post, I said that the appreciation and motivation from my parents are what motivate me. Before writing that I spent almost half an hour contemplating and it gave me more determination to succeed. It is not a coincidence that from that moment, my posts were more detailed with examples. That post on motivation had an impact on me, and I would suggest more of such posts to help students realign their objectives and rediscover themselves.

In the sixth post, I was comfortable enough to share my personal experiences including my pregnancy. Post six was asking about any personal patient safety issue one might have experienced. This is one aspect I feel I brought to the posts. I was able to give real-life personal examples which I was able to associate with the topic being discussed. I also brought a different culture to the class, and this diversity is what made the posts interesting. It would not make sense if all the posts were similar and the different backgrounds helped give varied answers. For example, in the second post I shared about Al Qatif Central Hospital in Saudi Arabia while others shared hospitals from their hometowns and in the end, we had hospitals from all over to draw comparisons from.

One thing I valued from the posts is that we had a question which one was supposed to answer in a few words. Most of the time I found myself with so much to share but I was restricted. To be honest, I do not think students enjoy reading long posts. Therefore, I had to find the essential elements and summarize them. I always strived to have informative posts that my classmates would learn from and enjoy reading.

If I were to do this all over again, I would probably make a few changes. I would improve how I started; I would give more examples, and cite my work. One thing I would keep asking myself is, what am I contributing to this class? Whenever I was responding to posts, there are certain individuals who I always looked forward to reading their content. They had such richness in their content that responding to their posts was effortless. I would wish to have my posts achieve such levels.

Conclusion

In conclusion, reading my posts and analyzing them has made me realize areas I need to improve on. I have noticed the changes over the weeks in terms of growth and development. I look forward to having improved input in my next classes.