Starting it Right

40 Tips to a great start this semester

HELP STUDENTS MAKE TRANSITIONS

• Hit the ground running on the first day of class with substantial content.
• Hand out an informative and user-friendly syllabus.
• Give an assignment on the first day to be collected at the next meeting.
• Call attention (written and oral) to what makes good lab practice.
• Hand out supplemental study aids.
• Put in writing a limited number of ground rules regarding absence, late work, testing procedures, grading, and general decorum, and maintain these.
• Give sample test questions. Give sample test question answers.
• Explain the difference between legitimate collaboration and academic dishonesty be clear when collaboration is wanted and when it is forbidden.

DIRECT STUDENTS’ ATTENTION

• Start the class on time. Start the lecture with a puzzle, question, paradox, or picture to focus on the day’s topic.
• Give a pre-test on the day’s topic.
• Elicit student questions and concerns at the beginning of the class and list these on the chalkboard to be answered during the hour.
• Have students write down what they think the important issues or key points of the day’s lecture will be.

CHALLENGE STUDENTS

• Have students write out their expectations for the course and their goals for learning.
• Use variety in methods of presentation every class meeting.
• Incorporate community resources: plays, concerts, the State Fair government agencies, businesses, the outdoors.
• Share your philosophy of teaching with your students.
• Form a student panel to present alternative views of the same concept.
• Tell about your current research interests and how you got there from your own beginnings in the discipline.
• Let your students assume the role of a professional in the discipline: philosopher, literary critic, biologist, agronomist, political scientist, engineer.
• Conduct idea-generating or brainstorming sessions to expand horizons.
• Give students two passages containing alternative views to compare and contrast.
• Distribute a list of the unsolved problems, or dilemmas in your discipline and invite students to claim one as their own to investigate.
• Let your students see the enthusiasm you have for your subject.

PROVIDE SUPPORT

• Collect students’ current telephone numbers and addresses.
• Check out absentees. Call or write a personal note.
• Diagnose the students’ prerequisites learning by questionnaire and give them the feedback as soon as possible.
• Allow students to demonstrate progress in learning: summary quiz over the day’s work, a written reaction to the day’s material.
• Use non-graded feedback to let students know how they are doing: post answers to ungraded quizzes and problem sets, exercises in class, oral feedback.
• Reward behavior you want: praise, stars, honor roll, personal note.
• Organize Give visible structure by posting the day’s “menu” on chalk- board.
• Be redundant. Students should hear, read or see key material at least three times.
• Use multiple examples, in multiple media to illustrate important concepts.
• Maintain an open lab gradebook with grades kept current during lab time

ENCOURAGE ACTIVE LEARNING

• Have students write something.
• Have students keep three-week-three-times-a-week journals in which they comment, ask questions and answer questions about course topics.
• Invite students to ask questions, probe student responses to questions.
• Have students apply subject matter to solve real problems.
• Roam the aisles of a large classroom and carry on running conversations with students as they work on course problems.
• Do oral show of-hands multiple choice tests for summary review and instant feedback.
  
• Grade quizzes and exercises in class as a learning tool.
  

GET FEEDBACK ON TEACHING

• Gather student feedback in the first three weeks to improve teaching and learning.

Source:

Derived from the article ‘101 Things You Can Do In The First Three Weeks of Class’, Teaching and Learnig Center-Univ of Nebraska, reprinted in the book Handbook 2, Advanced Teaching Strategies (Nov 2000).