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Learner Reviews & Feedback for Mindfulness and Well-being: Foundations by Rice University

4.8
stars
733 ratings

About the Course

This course provides a broad overview of the fundamental concepts, principles, and practices of mindfulness. With interactive exercises to help students explore their own attitudes, mental habits and behaviors, Foundations of Mindfulness offers a pathway for living with more freedom, authenticity and ease. Featured components of the course include experiential exercises, guided meditations, personal reflection and interactive discussions....

Top reviews

TN

Apr 19, 2022

It was a very enjoyable, organized, and well-planned course. I am really happy with it.

It's a nice opportunity to know more about yourself, your body, and your mind.

Thank you for this journey!

AR

Aug 18, 2022

Great course for beginners and experienced meditators! It has the theoretical and the practical part. Everything is balanced and interesting. I liked the informative part of the course the most.

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1 - 25 of 280 Reviews for Mindfulness and Well-being: Foundations

By Nicole D B

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Jul 9, 2020

Beautiful course and so easy to understand and relate to.. Full of information that can be used beyond the course and i am truly looking forward in practicing what i have learned more. I especially loved the moments of practicing meditation with the instructo (it showed me how to do it properly instead of trying to figure it out on my own). Loved this course..

By Paulette R

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Jan 30, 2022

While there was some good content in this course, I was disappointed in the structure of it. I have taken a series of Positive Psychology Courses from the University of Pennsylvania and one from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and got so much out of them. Those courses were truly self-paced and there was time to really engage in the individual activities. I never felt pressured or that I was working against a deadline.   However, in this course, I felt driven by the expected completion date and the Coursea reminders that I am for credit I have to be finished by a certain date. I cannot tell from the design of the course whether this is professor, Rice, or Coursea driven requirement, but for working adults it is ill-conceived - especially for a topic like mindfulness where there is a significant experiential component.   From my perspective (and one of my Masters Degrees is in Education with a focus on adult and technology learning), this design doesn't make sense.   First, I would suspect that most of the people enrolled in this course are working adults - living complicated, over-taxed lives. This specific type of course is not a critical-path degree programs but rather something people take out of personal interest and desire to improve their lives. There is no need to be calendar driven. There is nothing magic about completing this in 30 days.   Secondly, the weekly structure is linier - content -> activity -> case study -> graded reflection. Therefore, in order to meet the 7-day timeline and be compliant, the study is driven either to rush through the content, ignore the three day activity target, or to do the minimum to get by, particularly in the reflections.   I would recommend the following changes: 1. Eliminate the drive to have this done in a month and quit sending messages trying to push the student into compliance. At the end of the first week I had to make the decision whether to just drop this or continue because I was so annoyed by the nature of the Coursea notice. How many students are being driven away when they realize that they can't keep up this pace because of tempo/demands of their "real lives." 2. At the beginning of the course, recommend that the student start a mindfulness journal so that they can capture the learning from their practices and be able to reflect on them at the end of the module. Then, as content is presented, for some, add an activity for experimentation with the results added to their journal. I think this building block structure would provide deeper learning then the current design 3. I would eliminate the Case Study Videos. While I understand the intention of building connection, it is so staged that, at least for me, it is "check the block" "make work."

By Whitney C R

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Aug 27, 2020

In four weeks you can move from someone who has never experienced mindfulness to someone who has a solid foundation to build a transformational practice. I highly recommend this course!!

By Hugo

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Jan 26, 2021

It's a great course. Its simple, but with a great impact. A lot of people, including me, might be skeptical about Mindfulness because of the exhausting bombarding of pseudo-scientific and pseudo-spiritual actors selling it as a silver bullet. In this case, this course takes us through the objective elements: science, history, concrete evidence that is a building block of this relatively new exploration of the mind. Remember, that the exploration of the conscience/brain is something "new", and with new technology we are finding more and more data about the plasticity of the brain and the impact generated by our language, speech, culture, etc... Try this, and give yourself the chance to reclaim a space for your own mind.

By Chan S C M

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Aug 21, 2020

I am glad that I had selected the foundations of mindfulness. Overall, this course is well designed, the lessons are sufficiently paced to benefit learners to get the best out from the practices. I would recommend the foundations of mindfulness to busy people whom could not fine time to relax and reflect. It just takes less than 20 minutes of their schedule for a meditation practice for an overall balance in a purposeful life.

By Tarja R

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Jul 17, 2020

It was more than I expected. Good theory sessions and nice practices, very good course. It is my pleasure to recommendate this course.

By Stephen S

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Feb 7, 2021

I highly recommend this course. It is the first time that I have completed a Mindfulness course after having tried many times before. The material is well organized to take you from one level to the next. The assignments were enjoyable to accomplished and I learned a lot about my self in the process. This is not a one time course but has brought about another lifestyle change for me. I encourage you to look no further if you want to explore Mindfulness. I enjoyed Dr. Slator's explanations and wonderful narration and Seth's candid sharing of his experiences with this course. Thank you both and also the folks at Coursera.

By Nancy S

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Aug 23, 2020

The course was engaging and inspiring. The influence of this course in mindfulness has allowed me to transform my inner thoughts and mindset to find more positive feelings and be able to grow older with a new set of skills developed through guided meditation. I hope that I continue to enjoy the practice of mindfulness in my daily life.

By Betty R

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Jan 12, 2021

Well organized course material. Many opportunities to engage with other students. Active learning throughout course. Excellent resources. Lectures are good length with meaningful content.

By Anna-Maria U

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Apr 15, 2021

The course exceed my expectation. A lot of knowledge , exercises, literature - in a nutshell. But enough to start practise mindfulness for your own well-being. Excellent. Thank you !

By LAVERNE B

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Sep 2, 2020

Absolutely a powerful course, this is something I will take with me professionally and personally. With co-workers and relationships outside of work.

By Ng S H

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Jan 19, 2021

Thank you very much for a very good learning and experiential course on the Foundations of Mindfulness. There were a lot of self-discovery and am trying to make mindfulness as my close friend to understand my mind and body processes and mental tendencies better.

The impactful words of the 7 Attitudinal Foundations of Trust, Patience, Non-striving, Non-judgmental, Acceptance, Letting go and Beginner's mind, and R.AI.N of Recognise, Allow, Investigate and Nurture are extremely helpful in my life journey of mindfulness.

Thank you very much to the course instructor, Dr. Elizabeth and her team of assistants for a wonderful excellent course on the foundations of mindfulness. Thank you.

By Casey E

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Oct 19, 2020

I've taken a few courses on Coursera and I really liked this format the best so far: interactive discussion boards, lectures rooted in science/theory, suggested readings to deepen learning, journaling to get the synapses firing, and tracked practice to pull it all together. I had no clue what to expect and had never practiced mindfulness before. After this course, I find I am hungry for more and am pursuing it on my own. This course definitely changed my life, and sad it's over to be honest!

By Raju a U P

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Feb 15, 2021

I found the structure of this course very easy to follow, and the combination of videos, and notes, plus reading and reflections were very helpful to start the practice of mindfulness

By andeol c

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Jan 31, 2021

An incredible journey that brings you to a global life enjoyment great improvement and much more ... and even some points were not easy at all, this fantastic yet very pragmatic course which helps a lot to better understand its concepts, is a one to do would you need to reduce stress, go beyond your boundaries, or simply owe you to go through your daily life with a lot more of happiness. A big thanks to Dr. Elizabeth Slator wonderful teacher, and the supporting RICE University & Coursera to make this available.

By Ana E A

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Jan 17, 2021

Foundation of mindfulness allows us to calm the mind and connect with body sensations which appears to be absent as we tackle our day to day. Through subtle meditation, we are able to calm the central nervous system and become aware of present moments. It helps with training the mind to focus on the now. As the outcome, we are able to fully embrace experiences, and accomplish tasks. We also learn how to be forgiving and empathetic understanding that behavioral changes are practices requiring patience.

By Josef M

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Oct 4, 2020

I know my review will sound like a pure marketing but anyway - this is really great course and I can really recommend it to everyone who is interested in mindfulness. I enjoyed it very much. You definitely have to try it!

By Luminita V

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Nov 17, 2020

I enjoyed the weekly challenges in particular. Very meaningful content with ample examples and explanations, straight forward quizzes, great lectures.

By Pui M

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Oct 28, 2020

Good introduction to mindfulness and inspired me to continue with the practice. I hope I can continue to journey, see how much severance I have got.

By Krishnaveti H

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Jul 20, 2020

Wonderful practice-based Mindfulness course!!!

By Christopher M

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Mar 10, 2021

Thanks for the great course Dr Slator. I work as a clinical hypnotherapist, and although I have dipped into mindfulness as part of my study, it was an enjoyable and thought provoking process. One of the highlights were your conversations with Seth about his progress. This was so insightful and his honesty was certainly a springboard to further thoughts and ideas for helping me in future practice. I look forward to the next course, and connecting with you further. I highly recommend this to other students.

By Vlasiuk O

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Aug 22, 2020

This is a great course on mindfulness and meditation. Material is very brief and everything is useful, complete and necessary. Teacher is very positive, good explanations, nice case study (example of the student), nice meditation audio tracks. I really organased myself and practiced regularly. Forum (discussions) are very useful, it helps to see that you are not alone with your hardships, back pain and monkey mind during meditation. I recommend you this course for sure!

By Lou W

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Mar 6, 2021

Foundations of Mindfulness, what a beautiful and life changeing course. Who would have that that expotential self growth would have come from one course. Dr. Slater brings to the table practices that engage one to look deep inside our thoughts and thought patterns. Recognizing that negative thoughts add to suffering and how a Mindfulness practice can help heal and elevate our existing life by being present. I would recommend this course to anyone and everyone.

By Abeywardena, H

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Dec 26, 2020

This was a wonderful course and a wonderful experience. The each lecture session was like therapy for me. I started this course without knowing anything about mindfulness but now I can surely say I have improved my self in various aspects otherwise I would not have even noticed or cared for at all. I would like to thank Dr. Elizabeth Slator for sharing this valuable information and I wish her all the best to continue what she's doing.

By Sue L C

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Jan 25, 2021

Mindfulness can be taught very effectively online without an expensive fee (in fact FREE!) and without a famous brand name like "Chopra" or "MBSR". I enjoyed taking the course, and having the concepts of mindfulness so well-explained and illustrated. I highly recommend this course to anyone seeking to better understand mindfulness, and perhaps try to put some of the concepts into practice.

Thank you Rice U and Dr. Elizabeth Slator!