Ikigai: Help Students Find Their Purpose – OneHE

Activity

Reflective activities

Ikigai: Help Students Find Their Purpose

Maha Bali

This is a reflective activity that helps students to focus on their strengths and passions, and what they can do to make a positive impact on the world.

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ACTIVITY PURPOSE

The purpose of the activity is to help learners reflect on their own strengths, passions, things they believe the world needs, and things they can themselves contribute constructively to the world.

USEFUL FOR

Useful to help students choose topics/projects to focus on, perhaps to also find team-mates (with, for example, similar interests but different strengths).

PREPARATION

Prepare slides with the four main Ikigai questions and invite learners to answer them. An ikigai is something that gives purpose to one’s life, something that inspires one to live. The four main questions are:

What do you love?
What are you good at?
What can you be paid for? Or What can you get credit for in your course?
What does the world need?

View a modern Ikigai diagram as an example.

INSTRUCTIONS

You can let learners know about the activity ahead of time and use class time for sharing in small groups, or do it as a class activity giving your class time to think individually, then time to work in groups to share.

DURATION

20-30 minutes or so if done synchronously

ADAPTATIONS AND EXAMPLES

Can be done asynchronously where learners reflect in writing on each of the questions separately before putting it all together, over several sessions.

TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS

No specific technical requirement, but you can use a jamboard or Google slide with the 4 questions as a visual for students to respond to. It can also be a completely text-based exercise if required.

USEFUL RESOURCES

You can use the Ikigai diagram as a featured image if you like.

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ABOUT

Educator prep: None
Student prep: None
Synchronous, Asynchronous
No tech needed, Shared online space, Cameras off option
Duration: 5-30 mins

This activity is one of a series of activities from Equity Unbound, focused on equitable online community building.

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