| INTRODUCTION - First Day Ideas |
What Do I Need To Do Before The First Day?
How Do I Get Started On The First Day?
How Do I Break Students Into Small Groups?
What Should The Small Groups Do First?
Just as the first impression is the most important part of an interview, so is the first day of class to a seminar. The time spent thinking about what the first day of class will look like and feel like is important. Students will be observing not only what their instructor says but how he/she says it. Ideally, instructors model behaviors that will be expected from students later. On the first day, students should recognize their level of participation in this class will be different from other classes. Plan activities to get students actively involved and participating from the first moment they enter the room. Openly discuss the differences between this class and other classes they have taken at UC Davis.
Experts on group dynamics recognize that as the task gets more difficult, the teams need to build stronger relationships and vice versa. If the task is not aggressive, a team may not bond or build strong relationships. In order for teams as diverse as those in your seminar to be successful there needs to be a set of common goals, values, processes, recognition, trust, and acceptance. To build trust, teams will need to maintain a level of respect, honesty, and openness.
While the students enrolled in your seminar may exhibit a great deal of intelligence and motivation, most have never been taught what skills they will need to function effectively as a team member or given any facilitation skills. Unfortunately, these skills do not come naturally or automatically when a student joins a group. These skills need to be demonstrated and taught to students. The ideas listed here are meant to complement your own ideas. Use the activities listed together with the tips listed on the Cooperative learning section of the handbook when planning the first part of your seminar. The following is a brief presentation of possible first day activities connected to sites giving more detailed information or sample handouts.
On the first day you have four major goals to accomplish. They are to:
Be creative, challenge yourself not to present any of these topics using a standard lecture format. Use icebreakers, active lessons and games to accomplish each of these goals.
A room set up lecture style tells students before the class begins what to expect. Take a few minutes to set up the room in a circle or horseshoe formation. This set up will contribute to group interaction. If students are looking at each other, they will be more likely to direct their comments to one another and not direct every comment to you. If possible, use chairs without desks and move tables to the perimeter so there are no barriers to interaction.
Share with the class:
In order to work together effectively team members need to trust one another. Trust involves openness, honesty and respect. Simple activities like icebreakers and other games can help form social relationships and encourage students to begin the process of getting to know members of their team.
Web Resources - Icebreakers
This method asks students to line up based on how strongly they agree or disagree with a statement the instructor poses to the group. The secret to the success of the activity is the statements, they must stir up strong feelings about the topic and be very controversial in order to get students to respond. An overhead transparency or the numbers 1 through 10 placed on walls at various locations within the room are necessary tools for explaining the process to the participants. Explain to the participants that you will be reading a statement about a controversial topic. Each individual is to make a decision about how strongly they agree or disagree with the statement, then when directed stand near a number on the wall. One will indicate that the individual strongly agrees and ten will indicate strong disagreement. This can be done with more than one statement or type of situation. You can ask students to defend their position on the wall and allow them to change if their perspective changes during the discussion.
At any point you can take students from different levels of agreement and disagreement to form heterogeneous groups. Or simply fold the line in half, pairing the 1s with the 10s and so on, and have them discuss each point of view. (Cottell,Millis, 1998)
Corners Activity
If homogeneous or four heterogeneous groups are desired, a corners activity can be implemented. This activity asks students to join a group in a designated corner of the room based on preferences or answers to questions. Four choices or preferences are given by the instructor for each question and statement, students move from one corner to another based on their individual decisions. An example from Millis and Cottell (1998):
"The greatest value of college life comes from: (a) academic subjects; (b) social skills required; (c) networks formed with peers and professors; (d) the opportunity to interact with people from differing backgrounds cultures and views."
This is a quick way to find out where students stand on the seminar topic. Once the four options are announced the instructor should allow a time for students to think about their preferences then give a signal for participants to move about the room and select their corner. Labeling corners a-d and placing options on a overhead labeled a-d will help eliminate confusion. After students have selected their corner ask each person to share with their corner group why they chose that corner. Each corner can then be asked to summarize their groups reasoning and present it to the large group.
For homogeneous groups keep each corner together for heterogeneous groups. Ask one representative from each group to form a new group. Using this method you can create groups representing different points of view and expertise.
The Three-Step Interview
This activity works well as both an ice breaker at the beginning of the quarter and as a way to create self-selected heterogeneous groups.
Instructors Select Groups: Experienced group dynamics instructor John Vohs of UC Davis like to put students into groups according to some unifying yet equally random characteristic. A few examples are according to zodiac sign, birthdays, or outside interests. Instructors can acquire unusual information about students by doing a student survey <add link to regism.doc> during the first day of class.
Once the groups are created have them do something. Anything will do, but remember that the goal is to transform this group of individuals into a team. Throwing them into the task may be what they want to avoid the uncomfortable feelings connected with working closely with new people, but this is not the best way to create a team. As mentioned before, teams need trust to function effectively. In order to build trust people need respect, honest and openness.
One of the biggest challenges for groups is making decisions. Have the group practice this difficult process by giving them a fictional or real problem to solve as a team. There are many examples of different activities in the team building section of the Web Resources page. Additional activities and books are available at the DHC office in Kerr Hall. Students may not be expecting this kind of active, non-academic activity so be explicit about your reasons for the activity from the start. Most of the time this will not have an impact on the effectiveness of the activity.
Remember the key to these activities is leaving time to process with the groups after the activity. For this you can use the Experiential Learning Cycle model to guide you questions or just ask for observations from group members and observers. Always leave time to make the purpose of the activity clear to your students.
As you introduce the concept, keep in mind students have as many apprehensions about working in teams as you have. These apprehensions will be lessened if they are addressed openly early on in the course. For more about introducing the concept on the first day the Instructional Innovation Network also has Climate Setting Tips .
Step 1: Address The Positive and Negative Aspects of Group Work
Step 2: Establish Group Goals: A common set of well defined goals is important for any successful group. Creating their own sets of Agreements and Expectations will give your teams a sense of commitment and identity. Creating the sets of explicit behavioral norms at the outset will lessen the chance of counterproductive implicit norms developing latter in the course.
There are many ways to do Expectations and Agreements. You can do a more general content oriented set with the whole group, then do more process oriented set with the smaller "topic" groups. If you model how to do it with the large group, then students should be able to recreate the process themselves.
Step 3: Model/Teach Group Interaction Method
Meeting Skills- Remember the goal of the first day is to keep the class as active as possible. Keep students involved and interested. Look over your plans for the first day. If teaching meeting skills on the first day may be overloading students with too much information and may work better during the second class meeting. You may want to have students participate in a group activity before you teach them any new skills, this experience may help students see the need for learning team work skills. On the other hand, many instructors have found DHC students naturally work well in groups and may not need much instruction in this area.
One way of introducing students to methods of working as a team is to use the Group Dynamics section of John Voh's handbook. Suggested reading for students: Pages 1-15 of John Voh's Group Work and Collaborative Writing Handbook, available at the DHC Web site and the Group Dynamics section of their Student Handbook.
On the first day it is important to do something that relates to the content of the seminar. Building on students' prior knowledge is often one of the goals of introductory activities, as is getting students excited about the topic. All of the activities or lessons below have both of those goals in mind. As an instructor this is a good time to remind students that you are not the expert and help to focus on what they do know, not on how much they do not know. There are no wrong answers to most of these activities.
Keep in mind the fact that the students do not know each other very well will be working against you in all of these brainstorming activities. Keep the risk level low and modify the activity as needed. If the ideas are not flowing as a large group, break them up into small groups. Still nothing happening? Let them work as individuals first, then as a small group then bring them back together. All of these activities will also flow more smoothly if you set up concrete tasks and time limits, which is usually less time than you think they will really need. Joanne Stewart a chemistry professor at Hope College, Michigan, models this concept in her lesson plan for Group Development and Peer Review of Research Proposals: An In Class Planning Handout. Her advice and reflections on this activity may also help you know what to think about as you set up similar activities for your seminar.
1. Concept Mapping
Have students create a concept map containing all the information they know about the topic and related issues. Have students create individual maps first or small group maps, then bring the group back together to create a single map.
2. K-W-L
KWL stands for what the students KNOW, what the students WANT to know and what the students LEARNED. Separate newsprint into three sections and have students list what they Know and what they Want/need to know. Later, students will add what they have learned. This activity tells the teacher how much the students know before starting a topic. It also allows students to tell the instructor, what the students want to get out of the activity. By doing this type of brainstorming activity, it helps the students to be actively involved in thinking about the relevance of the activity before and after the activity.
Brainstorm and gather all of the information. Keep the transparency or newsprint for latter sessions where information can be updated.
If you would like more information check out this mini-lesson with more detail on using a KWL chart.
3. Develop a Research Strategy/ Make Sure Students Understand the Problem
Present the Big6 information and problem solving strategy. Proceed through Step 1 together as a class or in small groups. Remember this is still a brainstorming session. Encourage students to share as many ideas as possible. The secret is to get the creative juices flowing at this stage, get them motivated and making the personal connections to the problem/topic.
The additional five steps can be taught after completing step one or presented at the beginning of the lesson.
Ithica College Library has also put together a Web based course on research methods, this site has a great lesson on developing a research strategy.
This page recommends students ask themselves questions to make sure they understand the assignment before they delve into the research and recommends students plan out the research process.
For more information about teaching research strategies see the Research Skills section of the handbook.
3. A True/False Survey
Create a list of true and false statements related to the topic. Give a copy to individual students to complete. After a brief time, ask the students in small groups to come to a consensus on the correct answer to each question. After the groups have completed the task, ask group members to share what process their group used to decide on each answer and how well they felt it worked. Then go over the correct answers.
Another possibility is to give students a list of terms to define related to the topic. Have students work individually, then as small groups, then as a large group. The terms chosen do not need to be technical; choose terms that are important for consumer literacy.
4. Observation and Hypothesis
Plan an exercise that requires students to make observations and hypotheses in small groups. This might include making observations from slides, geographic regions or data sets. After making observations encourage students to interpret these observations and create hypotheses. During this exercise require students record the group's ideas on a large sheet of butcher paper and then write out hypotheses and observations in different columns. At the end of the exercise bring groups back together to discuss the ideas and compare findings. Students may be hesitant at first, but this is the first step in encouraging them to create their own ideas and not to rely on regurgitating information. (D'Avanzo, C., 1997)
Additional samples of first day activities to access students' prior knowledge and background information can be found at the following links:
I. Sample first day lesson plans by Daniel Cox for his Winter 1999 Industrial Ecology Seminar.
II. Lessons and Activities This will take you two a page entitled, "Classroom Context for Cooperative/Collaborative Learning." To find the lesson plans click on C/CL Lessons and Activities. The top three lesson plans are:
References:
Cottell,P.G. and Millis, B.J. (1998). Cooperative learning for higher education faculty. Phoenix, Arizona: American Council on Education/Oryx Press.
D'Avanzo, Charlene (1997) "First day of class in an investigation based course". Florida, Saunders College Publishing.
Eisenberg, M. and Berkowitz, E. (1998) "Big6 skills curriculum".
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