Don't Go Over Your Syllabus on the First Day. Do this instead!
Too often, the first day of school is filled with us teachers sharing about class expectations and syllabi. Imagine being a student who has to sit through seven or eight of these presentations. Instead of sharing your syllabi on the first day, what if you skipped the syllabi and used this class time to engage, invigorate and inspire.
But you say: My students need to know what to expect. In my teacher education classes they told me to set clear expectations for my students!
What to do on the First Day
What if…You simply introduce yourself, hand out your expectations (with a twist) and then have the most awesome, engaging, creative activity for students to do. Get them active in their learning the first day. Get them doing something interesting and exciting. It might be something to simply get them sharing about themselves so that you can get to know them better, or something content related where they have to solve a problem or do some sort of research. Remember, they have been away from school for a long time and we need to re-energize their brains and get them back into “school” mode.
One activity I often did with students on the first day was to give the tallest tower challenge. Students are given supplies and asked to create the tallest free-standing tower. Some of the supplies were things like pieces of paper, paper clips, cups, and straws. There is a detailed explanation of the activity HERE. Groups of students are given twenty minutes to do the activity and as a class we debrief about their problem-solving strategies. This is an ideal activity for a science class and may not work in all contexts. The key is to have something that engages students on the first day.
The Twist: What you do on the Second Day
Here is the twist. Remember the handout you gave on the first day. You need to make one more thing. Make flipped video about your course expectations. Put a link to your flipped video on the handout so students know where to access it. Also provide a QR code to the video. During this video, you could not just go over expectations, but if you are planning to flip your class, you can explain what your flipped class will look like and how students are expected to participate. If you do this I encourage you to build in some interactivity. Have students respond to some questions online so you can accomplish a number of goals: You will know who accessed the video content, know if they understand what is going on, and be a place where they can ask questions of the group.
Then on the second day, lead a conversation about your class expectations. Do NOT lecture. Make this an interactive and engaging whole class discussion. Share with them the data you collected from the flipped video. Show them how you as a teacher can see what questions they ask from the flipped expectations video. Also show them that you know if they don’t watch it.
This discussion may take a long time or it may be short. If it is short, then move on to another awesome and engaging activity. And even if you are not planning on fully flipping your class, flipping your class expectations will get students active and engaged right away.
So start your class off right by setting yourself and your students up for deeper engagement and meaningful relationships. Have a great first few days of school.