One of the most powerful ways to engage your students is with a class mission statement. The reason why is it involves them with the purpose and direction of the class. Not only will it help define your expectations for them, but also give clarity to their goals as well.
But the most important thing is they get a part in choosing what your class is about. This way they will feel a sense of ownership and buy-in, rather than simply feeling obligated to attend school at all.
Having said that, how do you make a great mission statement in the first place? That’s what we’re going to talk about today, so keep reading to learn how.
How To Create A Class Mission Statement Your Students Love
Discuss What The Class Will Be About
The first thing to do is to get your students thinking about what they want the class to be about. You can do this by having a discussion about what they would like the focus to be. This can be anything from learning about a certain topic, to becoming better students, or even learning about the world around them.
You can’t skip this step because it’s essential to get everyone on the same page. And it’ll also help them know what to expect and give them a purpose to show up every day.
Plus, by involving them and letting them know that what they say will shape their future classes, it makes them feel like they are personally responsible for their education, and that school can be somewhat fun and worthwhile.
Brainstorm A List Of Keywords That Describe Your Class
Next, you’ll need to make a list of words that define your class. Take the ideas that your students provided in the earlier step, and turn them into keywords. This will help you get a better understanding of what you want the class to be about, and make it easier to write a concise statement.
Here’s how that might look for you:
- Exploration
- Happiness
- Creativity
- Responsibility
- Knowledge
- Fun
- Play
Create A “Blueprint” Mission Statement
After that, your students need to combine those keywords into a brief sentence or two. This will create a statement that sums up everything you want from your class, and should have the main purpose of what you are trying to do. For example, your mission statement could look like any of the following:
- Our class focuses on knowledge, exploration, and creativity so that we can be responsible students who play an active role in our education
- Our class is about happiness and fun, so we can be better explorers of the world around us
- Our class is all about having fun and being creative, so we can be responsible and learn new things every day
This will serve as your blueprint for your class mission statement. It should combine the need to improve with something that sounds more fun (e.g. being responsible and being creative). This way, it will be more appealing to your students and set the tone for a successful year.
Share The Mission Statement With The Rest Of The Class
The next step is to share the statement with your class and see what they think. You can do this by writing it down on a piece of paper and having them offer suggestions, or simply reading it out loud and having a discussion about it.
This is important because they need to feel like they have a voice in what the class will be about. After all, they are the ones who will be spending the majority of their day in it!
Create The Final Draft
Finally, take all of their suggestions and use them to create one master draft of your class mission statement. This should incorporate the changes everyone agreed upon while keeping the original statement intact. Here’s an example of how this might look like:
- Our class focuses on knowledge, exploration, and creativity so that we can be responsible students who play an active role in our education. We will have fun and learn new things every day.
This statement is concise yet covers all the bases. It talks about what the class will be about and why it’s important. And, best of all, it sounds like something students will want to be a part of.
A Class Mission Statement Gets All Students Engaged
We hope that by creating a class mission statement, you’ll be able to get all of your students more engaged in the learning process. It can provide a sense of empowerment and make learning more enjoyable. That will help you get better results from your students, which is always a goal of any teacher.
And if you want another way to get your class more engaged, why not improve their typing skills with the great programs found at KeyboardingOnline? That’ll make it fun and easy for them to learn an important life skill.