Ideas for lesson plans for 1st class

[comp12]

Any ideas for a lesson plan involving incoming freshmen in a section of 30 students?

 

Being that it's day one, I'm not going to bank on a lot of kids having read their readings beforehand.

 

Being that there are 30 people and only 50 minutes, it's not practical to do a round of detailed personal introductions. Does anyone else have ice-breaker exercises they like to use for large'ish classes and young 18-year old college students?

 

Of course, since it's day one and these are freshmen who don't yet know the typical university infrastructure, I'm sure to spend time explaining lots of these details, like how to read a syllabus, what are their requirements, etc etc. But what suggestions do you have for 1st-day icebreaker activities?

 

Thanks!

[rising_star]

Honestly, Google is your friend here. Or, any book intended for first time college teachers.

[Sigaba]

Introduce yourself, pass out and review the syllabus for your discussion section. Read the riot act on plagiarism. Distribute blank student information forms. Take photos of the students so you can have their names and faces memorized by next week. Send them on their way with ten to twenty minutes to spare.

(The ice breaker is the act of taking photos for the purpose of learning their names. The ice will break even more if you pay a student a penalty if you don't remember his/her name.)

My $0.02.

[rising_star]

I'm going to disagree with Sigaba just a bit. Part of that is because at my university we can print out a class roster with pictures (the same as is on their student ID) so there's no need to do the photo thing. Second, if it's a discussion section, you need to do actual icebreakers where the students get to know one another, otherwise they may not get comfortable speaking around one another until halfway through the semester, which is not good. Third, there's some pedagogical research on this but, if you let them leave early the first day, it sort of sets them up to think you'll let them leave early every time. There's always the people who pack up with a couple minutes left in class. But, what you'll find if you let them leave early day 1 is that they'll start packing up 10-15 minutes before class ends "because that's when you let us out last time". Definitely not a precedent.

 

Sorry I was so brief before. What I should've added is that the type of icebreakers and activities you want to do on day 1 is very dependent on the type of course you're going to be running. You'll definitely want to do student info cards (for freshman, I usually ask them what their major is or will be, why they came to this university, and what they think their first semester will be like). You don't necessarily want to read the riot act or go over the syllabus in minute detail because it's generally overload, especially since they'll have multiple other people doing that to them in one day. If you're going to have them working in groups, have them do something in groups on the first day. If they'll be doing a lot of in-class writing, have them do that. If they're going to have to write and then share (think-pair-share, for example), have them do that.

 

So, it's impossible for me to sit here and say which icebreakers you should use since I don't know what kind of class you want to have for the rest of the term. Hopefully these ideas will get you started.

[Sigaba]

 Third, there's some pedagogical research on this but, if you let them leave early the first day, it sort of sets them up to think you'll let them leave early every time. There's always the people who pack up with a couple minutes left in class. But, what you'll find if you let them leave early day 1 is that they'll start packing up 10-15 minutes before class ends "because that's when you let us out last time". Definitely not a precedent.

 

Although the above information doesn't square with my experiences, it is good to know for future reference.

 

IRT the taking of photos, IME, it isn't so much the fact of having photos of students, but the way one goes about doing it. For example, if you use an instant camera, have the students write their own names on the pictures, and, on occassion, allow for a retake, you can get some relaxing chatter going.

 

Also, I've benefitted from using a student information form that provides a grid for student's schedules and making it clear before hand that the grids will be used to schedule my regular office hours.

 

Finally, I may have been glib when I wrote of a "riot act." I simply meant reading a sentence or three on the school's policies on academic integrity.

[dr. t]

I don't know, cheating scandals can cost tenure. Riot act seems like a good policy.

[toasterazzi]

I start by introducing myself and some of my background. Then I have the students do an icebreaker that gets them to introduce themselves and tells me a bit about who they are. As they introduce themselves, I take attendance on the class picture roster. Then I go through the syllabus pretty thoroughly. At the end, I let them know what they need for the next class, and I send them on their way. Typically, that will take us to about 5-10 mins before the end of class, and I'm fine with letting them leave at that point. 

 

As for icebreakers, there's plenty of options that you can find on the internet. The one I've been using for the last couple semesters is one called Marooned. In addition to telling the class all the basic info (Name, major, hometown, etc.), they also have to tell us three people (dead or alive, real or fictional) that they'd want to be stranded on and island with and why. Each section I teach has 25 students (typically all freshmen) and this has gone over pretty well with them.

[danieleWrites]

Begin as you mean to go on.

 

For freshman, I teach them how to work the course schedule part of the syllabus and inform them that if they ever ask me what we did in class today, or when something is due, I will tell them to check the syllabus. I go over the parts of the syllabus they immediately need to know (no late work, how to contact me, what books will be used, the fact that there will be pop quizzes, attendance policy, and that they'll probably epic!fail the class if they think they can just read the books and skip class). I give them my plagiarism lecture (it's short and involves Piper High School and what the university defines as plagiarism). After that, I talk about myself and then segue into a discussion where I question my credibility and trustworthiness as a teacher. How do they know that I'm qualified to teach composition? How do they know that they can trust that what I'm teaching them is right? This leads into a discussion of ethos, particularly for people who aren't famous, and how non-famous people like me establish and maintain ethos. It naturally falls into a discussion of how they develop and maintain credibility as a writer. When my alarm goes off, I explain that it's my signal to wind up the class, not their signal to pack up and leave. People packing up to leave when the alarm goes off means that I quit setting it and that means classes tend to run over. Then I spend a minute explaining about the connection between credibility and a good writer rather than talent/pretty sentences and a good writer. A final reminder of how to check the syllabus and the homework, and off they go.

 

I do the get-to-know you business when I do roll starting the next class period. My roster includes grade level and major. I have each student tell me their name, and then ask them about their major in some way, e.g. what emphasis are you doing, what interests do you have in the major, or if undeclared, what majors seem interesting.

 

I don't do icebreakers or other get-to-know you activities.