Full article available here. Excerpts below.
… On that first day, I would argue, your students are forming a lasting impression not just of you as a teacher but of your course, too. Their early, thin-slice judgments are powerful enough to condition their attitudes toward the entire course, the effort they are willing to put into it, and the relationship they will have with you and their peers throughout the semester.
So that first class meeting is a big deal. You want to give students a taste of the engaging intellectual journey they will undertake in the coming weeks — and you have great flexibility in how you go about it. Helping you to make that opening session as effective as possible, whatever your discipline, is the goal of this online guide. What you can expect to find here:
- I’ll start, as we academics so love to do, with a little bit of theory — specifically, four core principles that can help shape your planning for the first day of your course. (detailed below)
- Next, I’ll cover the logistics of a successful first day, including managing the space and technology as well as getting to know your students.
- To show you how to put the principles and the logistics into practice, I will provide examples of what a good set of first-day activities might look like in four disciplines.
- I’ll finish with some suggestions for how to support the good work you have done on the first day with some follow-up activities.
4 Key Principles
Principle No. 1: Curiosity
Highly effective college instructors recollect what first fascinated them about their discipline, pay attention to what fascinates students today, and make a connection with those issues at the opening of the semester. Such instructors reflect upon why the course should matter, and work to convey the significance of its content to students as well as to their world beyond the classroom.
All of which is why I can’t recommend strongly enough: Do not begin the first day of the semester by immediately handing out the syllabus. Instead, spark their curiosity about the content first, and then demonstrate — with a review of the syllabus — how the course content can help satisfy that curiosity. (I’ll offer some examples of how to do that in various types of courses below.)
Principle No. 2: Community
We do not teach brains on sticks. We teach human beings who are inspired by wonder, driven toward community, beset by fears and anxieties, and influenced in countless other ways by aspects of their lives beyond the purely cognitive. For both you and your students, those emotions will be at a peak on the first day of the semester, and they can have a significant influence on what happens in your classroom.
You can support those emotions on the first day by fostering a sense of community in the room — even one filled with several hundred students. The intellectual journey you are taking together comes in the form of a caravan, and while you might be the leader, you want all of them to contribute to the learning experiences you will be creating for them. How do you convey that?
- Humanize yourself to the students.
- Get students talking to one another.
- Greet each student, if you can.
Principle No. 3: Learning
- Ask students to try a cognitive task before they are ready.
- Invite students to think about the course from a metacognitive perspective.
Whichever approach you use, the most important element is basic: Set aside a chunk of class time on that first day for students to engage in cognitive work of some kind. Writing class? Have them write on the first day. A problem-solving course? Have them work on a problem. A discussion-based class? Get them talking. The point is that if you want your students actively engaged in learning throughout the semester, actively engage them in learning on the first day.
Principle No. 4: Expectations
So allot at least some time of Day 1 to outlining the parameters of the course beyond subject matter: materials, assessments, policies, key dates and deadlines. You’ll have all of that information handily available to you in the form of your carefully constructed syllabus. I don’t recommend reading the entire syllabus aloud in the first class. Give students copies in print and online, and then highlight the major elements. Set aside time for questions. Some instructors give students a no-points or low-stakes syllabus quiz on or immediately after the first day of class, ensuring that they get familiar with the most important aspects of the course.
Before the First Day
To put the four core principles into practice requires a few practical considerations before the semester starts. Doing some advance work to familiarize yourself with the students, the space, and the technology available in the classroom will support the activities you have planned.
The First Day of Class
Don’t think you have to hit all four of the core principles in the first 50 or 75 minutes of the semester (although doing so is less difficult than you might imagine). Some well-designed activities can allow you to hit two or three at the same time. The following four models — for courses in English composition, history, psychology, and linear algebra — demonstrate how a set of well-designed first-day activities can put the principles into practice. (go to article for the four models)
After the First Day
Here are three pathways you can use to extend the reach of your first-day activities.
The Learning Management System
A quick and easy way is via your institution’s learning-management system. Record a brief, informal video to convey your impressions of what students produced or discussed in class. Show your enthusiasm for a great start, remind them about any conclusions drawn, and point them to aspects of the course that will connect to the first-day activities. If you don’t like making videos, do it in writing. You could supplement both approaches with links to relevant resources, articles, or videos.
In either case, finish your response, recorded or written, by pointing forward. How does what you accomplished on that first day set the stage for what will happen on the second day, the third, and beyond?
The Next Class and Beyond
Or, you can do all of that in person on the second day of class. Produce a PowerPoint with the key findings from your first meeting, or a word cloud with their impressions of the course content. If the students created a list of activities that would help them succeed in the course, pull their ideas together into a one-page handout for successful learning.
As the semester continues, find small ways to link your opening-day activities to the current course content. In a senior seminar I teach on 21st-century British literature and culture, we watch a segment of the 2012 London Olympics on the first day, and analyze what it tells us about the British values that the organizers wanted to project to the world. As the semester continues, I refer back to those values whenever we can. Occasionally students, too, will refer back to that video in our class discussions, a connection I always affirm.
The Last Day of the Semester
I always like to close the course by pointing students back to where we started — in part, because I like to show them how far they have traveled in their learning. In my survey course on British literature, on the first day we do a group brainstorming session in which I ask students to tell me what associations they have with the word “British.” Their impressions are always woefully limited — they always mention the royal family, for example, and never say a word about the enormous impact that immigration has had on Britain in the past half-century. On the final day of class, when I show them images of the board from the first day, they can see how deeply their knowledge of British history and literature has grown.
Resources
Books
- On Course: A Week-by-Week Guide to Your First Semester of College Teaching, by yours truly. See especially the chapter on “Week One.”
- McKeachie’s Teaching Tips ( 14th edition). See Part One, Chapters 1-3.
- Teaching at Its Best: A Research-Based Resource for College Instructors, by Linda B. Nilson. See especially Chapter 7.
Articles
- “The First Day of Class: A Once-a-Semester Opportunity,” published in Faculty Focus by Maryellen Weimer on August 21, 2018.
- “Ten Tips for Dealing With Nervousness on the First Day of Class Faculty,” published in Faculty Focus, by Delaney J. Kirk, on August 14, 2018.
Online Guides From Teaching Centers
- “Make the Most of the First Day of Class,” posted by Carnegie Mellon University’s Eberly Center Teaching Excellence & Educational Innovation.
- “First Day of Class,” posted by the Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching.
Videos
- “First Day of the Semester: Good Activities,” posted by Discovering the Art of Mathematics, a group that offers ideas for teaching math to liberal-arts majors.
James M. Lang is a professor of practice at the University of Notre Dame’s Kaneb Center for Teaching Excellence. His next book, Write Like You Teach: Taking Your Classroom Skills to a Bigger Audience, will be published by the University of Chicago Press in May 2025. He is also the author of Distracted: Why Students Can’t Focus and What You Can Do About It and Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons From the Science of Learning.