{"id":2020,"date":"2013-05-24T08:44:00","date_gmt":"2013-05-24T13:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/teaching\/?p=2020"},"modified":"2013-05-29T16:25:22","modified_gmt":"2013-05-29T21:25:22","slug":"first-day-of-class","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/teaching\/2013\/05\/24\/first-day-of-class\/","title":{"rendered":"First Day of Class"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Ok, most of your semesters and winding down or over.\u00a0\u00a0 But, for those of us teaching this summer, we\u2019ll soon be turning our attention to planning the upcoming course.<\/p>\n<p>Over the past few days, I\u2019ve found myself thinking particularly about the first day of class. Sure, it\u2019s often a day that consists of the syllabus being passed out and students hoping to get out early.\u00a0 But, in reality, the first day sets the tone for the rest of the course. \u00a0Because of this, I try to spend some time thinking about the goals for the first day.<\/p>\n<p>Generally, I settle on the following three key goals:<\/p>\n<p>#1: Communicate the course elements and expectations clearly.<\/p>\n<p>#2: Immediately set the tone for the classroom as an open, safe atmosphere for learning.<\/p>\n<p>#3: Create rapport between the instructor and students, and begin to create rapport among students as well.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>To achieve these goals, I rely upon different activities. \u00a0Here are some ideas below:<\/p>\n<p><i>Communicating Course Elements<\/i><\/p>\n<p>Going over the syllabus is often a little boring.\u00a0 But, it\u2019s important to let the students know what they can expect throughout the course and what is expected of them.\u00a0 I also like having them write down what <i>they <\/i>except and hope to learn from the course before we go over the syllabus.\u00a0 Then, they can keep that in mind while we talk about the course, and, if you have them turn in their expectations, you can get a sense for what they are hoping to learn.\u00a0 Of course you can\u2019t incorporate all suggestions, but it\u2019s good to know where students are coming from.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve also heard about syllabus speed dating.\u00a0 I haven\u2019t tried it and would love to hear from someone who has, but the basic idea is that you set up in the classroom for \u201cspeed dating\u201d and then ask students to discuss a question about the syllabus as well as a question that enables them to get to know each other. \u00a0Then, switch partners and ask two new questions.<\/p>\n<p><i>Setting a Tone and Creating Rapport<\/i><\/p>\n<p>These goals take more than one class period to achieve. \u00a0But, icebreakers and activities geared to get students talking often help create a positive classroom environment from day 1. \u00a0We\u2019d love to hear your first-day activities so we can create a log of them.\u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/teaching\/2012\/08\/30\/first-day-activity\/\">Here<\/a> you\u2019ll find an older TSP post with a link to classroom bingo, which allows students to get to know one other.\u00a0 A few other popular ones we\u2019ve seen or done ourselves include:<\/p>\n<p>Interviews: Have the students pair up and interview each other. \u00a0Then, give them a chance to introduce their interview partner to the rest of the class.<\/p>\n<p>Two Truths and a Lie:\u00a0 Each person should share three things\u2014two of them are true, and one is a lie\u2014and the class guesses which one is a lie.<\/p>\n<p>Introductions with a Question: Have each student answer a question when they introduce themselves.\u00a0 I have asked students to talk about the coolest place they have been (global studies courses), but any broad question would work here.<\/p>\n<p>Student survey: Give students a short survey, which includes questions about their preferred name, why they are taking the course, their career goals, and any other things they think you should know.\u00a0 I prefer giving them this survey and going over it alone, but I\u2019ve seen others add a goofy question to the survey and go over it in class (after giving students a few minutes to fill it out) as a way to take attendance and do introductions.<\/p>\n<p>Ok, that&#8217;s just a few. \u00a0We&#8217;d love to hear your thoughts on activities as well.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Cambria; font-size: medium;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ok, most of your semesters and winding down or over.\u00a0\u00a0 But, for those of us teaching this summer, we\u2019ll soon be turning our attention to planning the upcoming course. Over the past few days, I\u2019ve found myself thinking particularly about the first day of class. Sure, it\u2019s often a day that consists of the syllabus [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":337,"featured_media":2033,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/teaching\/files\/2013\/05\/New-Year-by-Claire-Cook44-via-flickr.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/337"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2020"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2020\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2034,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2020\/revisions\/2034"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}