A few years ago I gave a brief overview of what I do on the first day of school, but since then I've rethunk and revamped my thinking on how to best organize those exciting/nervous/nerve-wracking first days.
The vision:
- The instructional and inter-personal interactions you have with students tell them (either explicitly or implicitly) what things you value.
- Your choices for how to spend the first days of school (and really all the days of school) need to align with your values.
My first day:
First, decide on those high value items. You know, the things that you really want students to know about either you or your expectations of them. Two high value items that I want students to understand right from the beginning are (1) I'd like to know each of them as individuals, and (2) I want them to become learners- not just grade grubbers who pick up a thing or two along the way. Then, find or create activities that reinforce those values.
Here's what I did last year:
I want students to understand that I value them as individuals1, so I started with a relatively low-impact ice breaker2:
SnowBall
Pass out half-sheets of paper to each student. You should have a half-sheet of your own. I do all of these steps right along with my students all the way through:
- Write one true fact about yourself on the paper (You could probably come up with more specific or interesting prompts. I like the "one true fact" prompt simply because it's non-threatening and allows a very broad range of responses).
- Crumple up the piece of paper (This is when you start getting funny looks).
- Throw your crumpled paper (The funny looks are coming fast-er and furious-er at this point).
- Pick up a piece of crumpled paper and de-crumple it.
- Find the person who the crumpled piece of paper belongs to and write their name on it. Don't let students take their paper from the person who found it and write their own name. When they do this they don't even have to get the other person's name.
- When you've found your person and they've found you, have a seat.
I like this because it gets students interacting with each other right away. In addition it allows me to interact with them in a non-talking-head way right off the bat.
Who I Am
Once the snowball activity has loosened up the atmosphere a little, we move on to Who I Am sheets (a tip o' the hat to Dan Meyer). They're a little more fun (& visually appealing) than the typical "write three things about yourself on this notecard" approach3, and I really enjoy reading all the students responses. Typically I'll set them aside for a week or two until I know my students better and then look over them all carefully. I also hang on to these sheets. Ideally I hang onto the students' Who I Am sheets until the end of the year and then pass them back to students. I've often forgot, or lost a few of the sheets, or whatever. However, it's a fun time having students look back at their responses as naive first day freshmen.
Generalities
- I try not waste class time, even during activities (like these) that could be considered "fluff." Again, it's modeling to students that what we do in class is important.
- I do go over class expectations with students, though I try not to on the first day. Students are bombarded with class expectations and rules constantly throughout the first day. Why not instead spend the first day focusing on who your students are, then get in the expectations a little later?
Resources
- The First Day Wiki- many suggestions and resources for beginning the school year.
- This page on the site has several variations on the Who I Am sheet (scroll down a bit), which are easily downloadable.
- Luann Lee goes over her first day plans on her blog. She take a more utilitarian route on the first day than I do, but I'd definitely incorporate some of her ideas into my first week schedule.
- Frank Noschese's "Subversive Lab Grouping Game" is another great way to get students talking while accomplishing something valuable. Consider it added to my repertoire.
- It's a little sad that many students are surprised or uncomfortable that I'd like to know more about them than whether they showed up on time and turned in their homework. [↩]
- I really dislike ice breakers. Seriously. I'm a bit introverted and can get cranky being forced to interact with strangers. True story. In this instance I get around my hypocritical feelings because this ice breaker doesn't require anyone to be the solitary focus of the large group- and it's short and over quickly. [↩]
- In the past I've reversed the snowball and Who I Am sheet. The downside of that is the first 10-15 minutes while students are filling out the sheet it's just awkward silent time. When I reversed the order, the atmosphere was a little lighter while filling out the sheets and it provided some good time for me to banter with students while they filled it out. [↩]
You echoed my feelings about ice-breakers exactly. In my experience, students who like center stage will manage to arrive there. It's those students who try to blend into the walls that I love to involve in a way that lets them feel safe. Once they have even a small victory in doing something other than getting lost in the crowd, the next time is easier.
Unfortunately, I think in general we (teachers) don't do a great job including our introverted students. It's tricky, though. An introverted student most often doesn't want to be the center of attention, and so often our way of interacting with students automatically brings them into the center of attention.
I think the big turning point for me was remembering my time in high school. While I didn't want to be the center of attention, I also didn't want to be ignored. (Reminds me of the lyrics from "The Ballad of San Francisco" by Caedmon's Call, "I love anonymity and I love being noticed, just like everybody else." ) The past few years I made a point to interact with every student in the classroom at least once a class either individually or in a small group (3-4) setting. While I often didn't meet that goal, it made me much more conscious about who I was interacting with and how.
Ben, I really like both of these first-day activities. I've always struggled with deciding what to do on the first day. My classes are always so small (less than six students, at least at the start) that a lot of these activities would not really have enough critical mass.
Lately I've just decided that the best thing to do on Day One is get started. If it's a programming class, I have them jump right in and write a simple program. Then we do all the boring Day One stuff on Day Two. So far that seems to work pretty well.
[...] was just reading an excellent post by Ben Wildeboer on his blog about what to do on Day One, and it made me reflect on the evolution of this curious pedagogical organism in my classes over [...]
@Roger- I think that's a perfectly viable option as well. There's certainly nothing wrong with jumping into some of the course content, especially if you can do it in a way that provides for plenty of student-to-student and student-to-teacher interaction. That's probably a more natural ice breaker than most any of the contrived ice breaker games.