Starting Strong: Setting the Stage for Meaningful Student Interaction Nicole Gray and Rachel Mudge Foothill College Faculty

Nicole’s Story  Where I grew up  My college experience  My teaching history

Rachel’s Story  Where I grew up  My college experience  My teaching history

Our work with Carnegie  Statway and Quantway Development  Data Collection  Starting Strong  Mindset  Belonging  Instructors caring

Week 1 of the quarter  Day 1 Part I – getting to know you  Then  Call roll from front of the room  Review the syllabus  Now  Take role by walking to each student  Getting to know you

Two Truths and a Lie  Rachel  I ride motorcycles  I’m fluent in French  I belong to a circus group  Nicole  I road my bike 200 miles in one day  I ran the San Francisco Nike women’s marathon  I trained with an Olympic Luger.

Week 1 of the quarter  Day 1 Part II –safe classroom  Rachel  Call out the anxiety in the room  boil down the syllabus to two rules  Nicole  Valuing non-algebraic solutions  Modeling responding to wrong answers

Week 1 of the quarter  Day 2 – classroom flow  Rachel  Forming groups  Expectations for working in groups  Nicole  Describe the class flow  Explain the different types of assignments

Week 1 of the quarter  Day 3 – Mindset  the activity  Read an article about how the brain works  They answer questions about the article  Write a letter to a friend  Return to class for a difficult task

Why is the first week so important?

The Benefits after Week 1  The students will…  share their thinking  exceed your expectations  work hard  be more self aware  persist

Subsequent weeks: Week 2+  Rachel  Mindset reminders  Addressing anxieties  Nicole  Interactive lectures  Assignment corrections

Routine  Types of s  Absentee  Weekly updates  Responding to student questions  etiquette  Quick responses  Motivating content  Don’t take it personally

The Drawbacks  You will…  know more about your students than you feel comfortable with  work hard in the classroom hours  You might initially feel…  like a new teacher  tired  uncomfortable  out of control

Thank you!