Kicking Off a Class: Effective Introductions

Kicking off a class is like the start of a game - the tip-off in basketball, kick-off in football or opening move in chess - it doesn't determine the outcome, but a good start sure helps and it can set the tone of the event.

Here is my kick-off ritual:

• I usually get to the classroom an hour before the start time to get settled. As students start to file in, I try to make eye contact and greet them.
• I put out name tents and markers so they can fill out the tents as they arrive.
• I keep a notebook of seating charts (lately I've been using a tablet with a pen). Before the class, I draw a layout of where the students sit that I fill out later.
• Though I'm a stickler for running a course promptly, I will wait five or ten minutes on the first day before starting, since students sometimes have difficulty finding the room.
• I always start by briefly welcoming the group (to get their attention) and then start introductions. I always start with STUDENT introductions, rather than introducing myself. That emphasizes that THEY are the important piece of the course, not me. Most of my courses have a page in the student notebook for the intros with a suggested format, usually something like:

  		    Name:
  		    Company: 
  		    Background:
  		         XXX for the course topic
  		    Goal for the course:
  		 

  I really emphasize the "goal" part - I'm trying to figure out what THEY expect from the course. That way if there's a mismatch between their expectations and MY expectations, I can deal with it at the very beginning of the class. And that mismatch happens far more often than I would like - I've even had to completely scrap the materials for an entirely different course after introductions.
  As each student introduces themselves, I write their name (usually just first name) on my seating chart. Then, I summarize their background and goals on the chart.
  After each student introduces themselves, I say "Thanks, YYY" and try to pronounce their name, giving them an opportunity to correct my mangled pronunciation.
• Once the students have all introduced themselves, then I introduce myself and write my contact info on the whiteboard.
• Most of my courses have a page in the student notebook listing the course's objectives - after intros, I go to that page and confirm that MY objectives match theirs and deal with any "issues".

Since I've been doing this so long, this really has become a ritual, but even so, I always sketch out a summary of this process on a piece of scratch paper so I don't forget anything. That helps me focus for the start of the class, and also helps calm the butterflies that inevitably start fluttering in my stomach, even after all of these years.

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