Today was the first day of the 2013–2014 academic year. As I have been for the past five years, I am teaching two sections of AP Psychology this year. As Yosup Joo and I were arranging the desks for class today, we had to think back to last year’s first day … we couldn’t really remember what we’d done. Here, then, is a record of today’s lesson plan.
Agenda:
- Schoolwide prayer over PA
- Brief greeting
- Students instructed to arrange themselves clockwise around the circle in chronological order
- I introduced myself
- Students instructed to interview the person to their left (and be interviewed by the person to their right)
- Students introduced the person to their left to the class, identifying that student’s name, what they “do” around campus, and “one cool thing” they did from the summer
- Overview of the course units
- Introduction to the course website, and a review of the Course Description/ syllabus
All in all, I felt really good about today. There was a good energy in the class; there was a good flow between parts of the 40-minute class; I covered Need to Know material in a way that I think students will remember it — and we didn’t do anything that they don’t actually need for the weekend.