Written and designed by the staff of the Center for Teaching and Learning. Reproduce with permission only.
Your first face-to-face contact with students is critical to the success of the rest of the course. Initial impressions can be changed only with difficulty, so you need to pay careful attention to your objectives for the first day of class. In general terms, you need to accomplish three objectives:
You will need the entire class period to accomplish these things, so don't dismiss class early--this is important work.
In a small class, you can set the tone for the entire course in the first class period by conducting a get-acquainted exercise before moving on to procedural matters. For example, after introducing yourself and providing some information about your background, scholarly interests, and teaching philosophy, reassure them that all their questions about the course will be answered before the end of the period. Then ask the students to learn the name, place of birth, and one interesting fact (e.g. heroes, favorite sports, favorite music, etc.) about the people sitting in the desks to their left and right. After five minutes, have the students introduce each other in sequence around the room. An exercise of this sort establishes a friendly atmosphere from the outset--it also sends them a message that you are interested in students as individuals. In large classes, you can allow time for students to learn something about their immediate neighbors, even if you must dispense with general introductions.
You want to appear well-organized, accessible to students, enthusiastic, helpful and fair--all of which are qualities students value highly in their teachers. If you have followed the guidelines in the previous sections of this handbook, you will have a well-designed syllabus as evidence of superior planning and organization. Spending a portion of the first class meeting discussing the layout of the course and the policies and procedures that govern it will underscore your interest in the course and the care with which you have planned it. If you review the syllabus one section at a time and show students how it can help them master the course material, they will be more likely to read it carefully and use it as a course guide. Your fairness and objectivity are indicated by a clear explanation of how course grades will be computed. If you emphasize your willingness to meet with students outside of class (by appointment if they cannot make your office hours), you indicate your interest in their success and your desire to help them when they have difficulties.
Make sure you have copies of the textbook, lab manuals, and other materials to show on the first day. When they have had a chance to buy the books, require that they bring them all to class one day so that you can describe the kinds of information you expect them to get from their reading. For example, many textbooks have special features which students can use to guide their studies--special headings, "boxes" of information, boldface type, definitions, etc. You would be surprised how many students fail to recognize these features as important reading guides.
Part of the first class meeting should be spent getting acquainted. Sharing information about yourself, and if class size permits, getting students to share information about themselves, is an excellent ice-breaker which will also help you establish rapport with the class. Some students never learn the names of any of their classmates, which effectively means that they can't contact them for help or advice. (A student can sometimes explain a concept to another student better than the teacher can.) Some teachers distribute a class roster, with names and phone numbers, so students can call one another when they have problems.
It is also important that you learn your students' names so they will feel that you see them as individuals. There is some evidence that students are more motivated by teachers who learn their names. You can begin the learning process on the first day, even if you have a poor memory for names. Some teachers require students to bring in photos (with names clearly inscribed), while others use a Polaroid camera to take snapshots on the first day. A few teachers videotape their students on the first day, having them file past the camera one at a time, giving their names and perhaps some background information. By watching the tape repeatedly, they quickly associate names and faces. You can also request that students choose a permanent seat so you can make a seating chart. If you explain that the seating chart is to help you learn their names, they will not object.
The first day of class is an excellent time to address student motivation. Many instructors are concerned about motivating students who enroll primarily to fulfill a graduation requirement, but motivation is an issue in every class. If you want students to work to their full potential, you need to think of ways to enhance their motivation.
Motivation for learning depends on three interrelated factors:
If you spend time the first class meeting addressing these issues, both you and your students will benefit. For example, to show them the value of the learning experience you could discuss how the course material will be useful for different majors, how the concepts will enhance their general education, or how the learning will help them in their future careers--in short, illustrate the ways they will directly benefit from mastering the course material. With some clever questioning, you can probably elicit most of these points from the students themselves. By drawing attention to your reasonable criteria and fair procedures for earning course grades, you can show them that they can succeed, given a reasonable amount of work--that rewards will be meaningfully related to performance. You would be wise to return to these points several times during the semester so the ideas will be constantly reinforced.
The more you learn about your students, the better you can teach them, and there are a variety of methods for gathering this kind of information. For example, you can distribute 3 x 5 cards on the first day and ask them for some basic information: full name; first name or nickname they prefer to be called; campus address and phone; home address and phone; major or intended major; the name of their General College advisor; any special health conditions they think you should be aware of; why they are taking the course, and what they expect to get out of it. Depending on the nature of the course, you may want to ask additional questions, but the suggestions above are basic. If you ever need to get in touch with a particular student, you will have campus and home addresses on file (since students move frequently, the addresses given in the university directory are not always current). Also, knowing where the students come from will be useful when you are trying to develop relevant examples to illustrate course concepts (rural students may not understand examples taken from inner-city life and vice-versa). If a substantial number of students indicate that they are taking the course simply to fulfill a requirement, you may need to spend more time on motivation; if most indicate that they are in the course because they are strongly interested in the subject you might be able to take them much further than you originally planned.
In addition to 3 x 5 cards, you may wish to develop a student profile in a more informal way (if your class is small) by asking students to sign up for a time to meet with you during the first week of class. You can then interview them individually to elicit information about their skills, interests, and needs, and generally get to know them better.
Consider giving the class a non-graded "pretest" covering material you think they should already know and some material that you intend to cover in the course (this technique can be especially enlightening for teachers of courses with prerequisites.) Their performance will provide important information about how much remediation you will have to do, or how much of the course material they already know. You could ask them to write a non-graded essay on some aspect of the course that you assume they know something about. Their essays will provide a quick measure of their knowledge and their writing skills and may afford insights about their preconceptions or misconceptions about the course material. For example, in a course that focuses on a foreign country or region, you could ask them to write what they know about life in that country; in a course in music appreciation, they could write about their favorite composers.
As you plan activities that will satisfy the two "get acquainted" objectives, leave sufficient time for a third objective: providing a sample of course content and your teaching style. For example, you could plan for a mini-lecture or discussion on a course topic they already know something about, show a short film related to course content and have a discussion, or devise an activity through which they learn about the nature and scope of questions the course is intended to answer.
You may discover that you can combine several of these activities--there are no hard-and-fast rules as long as you achieve the objectives. However, by the end of the first meeting your students should have a clear idea of your expectations for their performance, know what to expect in every stage of the course, and be convinced that they made a good choice in selecting your course.
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Last updated: January 30, 2001