ideas for the first day of class

Everyone gets a little nervous when a new school year begins, no matter how many years of teaching experience he or she has accumulated. It helps to remember that the students are nervous, too.

Many of us are thinking about how to enrich the first day of class beyond the typical explanation of the syllabus and other housekeeping matters. Here are some tips for college teachers that may provide ideas for all of us:

• From the Ohio State University, The First Day of Class
• From Vanderbilt University, First Day of Class
• From the University of California, Berkeley, two items:
  Tools for Teaching, tips from Barbara Gross Davis
  New Faculty Teaching Message

I was inspired to try some new things by various presenters at the LWI conference in July. So on my first day of class, my students are going to be treated to a very short "movie" (a series of clips on a silent movie-type soundtrack) that emphasizes some of the tools for success in legal writing. (It may bomb, but I am willing to take the risk.)

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