New Class, New Opportunities

Students can fall into passive mode very quickly. When you start an entire semester with several minutes of reading a document to them, they can be led to believe that the point of the course is to listen to you tell them things.

Instead of reading or reviewing the syllabus with students, have them do a disciplinary thinking task first and then spend the last 5 or 10 minutes of class doing the typical administrative tasks like introducing the syllabus and calling roll for attendance.

You can even assign reading the syllabus for homework: if you want to hold students accountable for that reading and ensure that they will bring in questions for you, give a short quiz online or on the second day of class.

The opportunity to use their understanding of the course requirements and overview will prompt meaningful questions that can help you explain any elements of the course that are confusing or unclear.

Many times teachers think it’s hard to have students do any real work on the first day because they haven’t done any reading or preparation to work with.

A more helpful way of looking at this is to recognize that this is actually an opportunity to learn what students already know and can do so you can show them how their thinking will change as a result of your course.

Design a task that will demonstrate the limitations of their thinking and introduce them to the idea that mistakes are part of learning.

Use the first day of class to create a space where it’s ok to be wrong in the service of learning and development.

Focusing on a content-related task can create a collegial atmosphere in the classroom. Tasks that require students to practice disciplinary thinking can be designed in ways that are very engaging, so you get the benefits of a social icebreaker with the added benefit of having students begin the real work of your course right away.

This is especially helpful if you are planning to use group or teamwork throughout the semester: it lets you orient students to what the day-to-day work of the class will look like.

Students come into this course not recognizing the importance of women writers in the literary marketplace of the 19th Century. They also don’t recognize that there is often an inverse relationship between a literary text’s popularity and its eventual inclusion in the canon.

This task is designed to begin interrogating those naïve beliefs so that students can more effectively use historical and cultural context as a foundation for analyzing and interpreting literature.

• The instructor introduces herself and welcomes students to the class.
   
• Students are given a list that includes the author, title, and year of publication of several 19th Century American novels.
  
  This list includes novels that were best-sellers in the 19th Century but have since been largely forgotten (most written by women) and novels that did not sell well in their time but have established a place in the literary canon (most written by men).
   
• Students work on their own to decide which of these novels sold the MOST copies within a few years of publication, and which sold the LEAST copies.
  
  They then put the titles into two categories: (A) Novels that would be in the top half of the list (i.e., sold the MOST copies) and (B) Novels that would be in the bottom half of the list (i.e., sold the LEAST copies). They are required to write down their individual answers.
   
• Students work with a group of 5-6 other students to compare individual answers and come to consensus on how they would sort the novels.
  
  After they have arrived at a consensus decision, each group writes their list on the board and then is asked to explain their reasoning.
  
  Disagreements and different ways of thinking surface; the instructor makes notes regarding the differing rationales and asks questions to probe students’ thinking.
   
• After the groups have thoroughly explained the thinking that guided their decisions, the instructor shares publication data and begins to explain the relation between the popularity of a literary work and its inclusion in the literary canon.
  
  She reminds students that they have now made a first step toward recognizing how and why many of the writers on the syllabus were very popular upon their initial publication but have since been excluded from the literary canon.
   
• In the last 10 minutes of class, the instructor calls roll and handles any registration issues. Then she hands out the syllabus and remind students that they have already begun the exciting work of the course.
  
  Students are asked to read the syllabus for homework and be prepared to take a short group quiz when they come to the next class meeting.

Students come into this course with rigid ideas about what a child is and limited ideas about the role that culture and ideologies play in human development. Further, students don’t always realize that their own ideas about children, families, and development are limited by their cultural biases and lay concepts.

By the end of the course, the goal is that students have a much richer and more scientific network of concepts with which to make good decisions as future parents, uncles/aunts, teachers, school psychologists, etc. This task is designed to surface some of their limited thinking right away and also get them to practice a key aspect of the course: making a decision about the developmental appropriateness of a tool, setting, or activity.

• The instructor introduces himself and welcomes students to the class.
   
• Students watch about five minutes of a video showing children at play in a playground. They are asked to make note of things that they think are good for the children in the playground and things that they think are not good for the children in the playground.
   
• After the short video, students decide for themselves if the playground is a developmentally appropriate one for the children in the video. They are required to write down their answer.
   
• Students work with a group of 4-5 other students to compare individual answers and come to consensus on whether the playground is a developmentally appropriate one for the children in the video.
  
  After they have reached consensus, groups hold up a card representing their answers (yes or no) and then explain their reasoning.
   
• Disagreements and different ways of thinking surface; the instructor makes notes regarding the differing rationales and asks questions to probe students’ thinking.
  
  After some time, the instructor reveals other ways to look at the playground (if these more disciplinary perspectives have not emerged) and tells the students that this kind of activity is similar to the work they will do every day in the class.
  
  The instructor reminds students that they have begun shifting from drawing on lay knowledge and their own experiences (and biases) to more informed positions and scientific knowledge during the discussion.
   
• In the last 10 minutes of class, the instructor calls roll and handles any registration issues.
  
  Then he hands out the syllabus and remind students that they have already begun the exciting work of the course. Students are asked to read the syllabus for homework and be prepared for an activity where they will use their understanding of the syllabus when they come to the next class meeting.