Getting To Know Your Class
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The document provides guidance for professors on getting to know students in their class. It recommends that professors write important class details on the board and use icebreaker activities at the start of the course to help students feel more comfortable with each other. Some suggested icebreakers include having students write their names in English next to their Arabic names on a class list, stating their name and its meaning or origin, and interviewing the student next to them to learn background details. The icebreakers not only help students learn each other's names but can introduce course concepts and skills.
Getting To Know Your Class
- 1. November 10, 2009 Getting to Know Your Class Academic Supervisor: Dr. Shadia Y. Banjar Wednesday, November 11, 2009 Getting to Know Your Class Write the name of the course, the level and the number of the group, the building and room number, the time and your name, office location, office on the board. Icebreaker activities are extremely useful in breaking down barriers between students in order to facilitate class participation. They are particularly important if you plan to have your students work in groups: through encouraging greater connections between students, icebreakers can enhance group processes and thus the quality of group work produced. Following are some ideas for how to get your students better acquainted with one another. Icebreakers: The key with icebreakers is to keep them relatively light-hearted. Choose the activities that will let students reveal aspects of themselves that they want to reveal. The icebreakers not only help students get to know one another but can be used to introduce them to concepts and skills they will be learning in the course. Here are some ideas: • Ideas for how to learn your students’ names Knowing and using your students’ names is a great way of showing interest in your students as individuals and creates a much more comfortable and friendly atmosphere in the classroom. You have your class list, pass a copy to the students and ask each one to write her name in English beside her Arabic listed name. Go over the list by calling the names so you'll be able to connect each name to a face. • What’s in a name?: Ask everyone to say their (preferred) name, and ask them to give at least one piece of information on why they were called this name (or some interesting feature of their name, such as a different way of spelling or pronouncing it). • Interview your neighbor: have students work in pairs to interview each other for a few minutes. The interview can be focused on a student’s major/minor, year of study, goals for the future, and other background information.