Live, Love, Learn and Leave a Legacy

Activity

Community building activities, Reflective activities

Live, Love, Learn and Leave a Legacy

Maha Bali

This is a reflective activity that can be done at the end of a semester to help students reflect on their achievements and progress.

ACTIVITY PURPOSE

To reflect on one’s “mission in life”.

USEFUL FOR

At the beginning of the semester for raising students’ awareness of what is important to them in their lives. This could work if your course later encourages retrospection or it can help them choose project topics that align with their values and goals.

PREPARATION

A slide deck or paper for students to write out their 4 items: Live, Love, Learn and Leave a Legacy.

INSTRUCTIONS

Ask students to imagine their 70th birthday, and what they would like everyone in their lives to be saying about them on that day.
Explain to them the four dimensions: Live, Love, Learn and Leave a Legacy.
Give the students time to think about how they would fill each of these items, as their goals in life. Help them then compose a ‘mission in life’ statement based on all four of these items.
Explain that there are some points in our lives where we cannot ‘balance’ all four of these at once (for example, having a baby is one time where you cannot focus as much on other people instead of taking care of your child) but that throughout our lifetimes, we can have goals in the four areas. This activity is based on Stephen Covey’s book, First Things First.

DURATION

It is good to give your students a long time to create their first draft and then time to revise it asynchronously.

ADAPTATIONS AND EXAMPLES

Very adaptable over time and formats, and how much happens individually and what gets shared.

TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS

None.

USEFUL RESOURCES

Covey, S. R., Merrill, R., and Merrill, R. R. (1995). First Things First. Prentice Hall & IBD.

Watch Video

ABOUT

Educator prep: None
Student prep: None
Synchronous, Asynchronous
No tech needed, Paper / pens
Duration: Variable

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

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