…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.
- 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.
Principle No. 1: Curiosity
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
- 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. (But don’t freak them out by using the word “metacognitive.”)
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.
Full article: How to teach a good first day of class by James Lang