by Suzanne Long (Biology)

This activity is not my own creation, but was shared with me by Ann McIntire (Psychology) this past fall. I tried it this spring semester with a large lecture class (66 students) and it worked beautifully.

Typically a large portion of time during my first class meetings every semester is spent going over the Course Information Sheet. While it would be nice to hand out the CIS, letting it speak for itself, and proceed with other “ice breaker” activities for the class and get started with course content, it always seems appropriate to address some of the policies in the CIS. This activity transitions nicely into a discussion of the CIS policies.

Small Group Activity
Ask the class, working in groups of four, to take out a sheet of paper and divide it into two columns. Instruct them to label the first column, “Characteristics of the Ideal Student” and label the second column, “Characteristics of the Ideal Professor”. Working with their group, they are asked to list as many characteristics in each column as they can in 3 minutes. Call upon the groups to share some of the characteristics of the ideal student that they listed. You will find that the characteristics they list can be easily woven into many issues addressed in the CIS, providing the ideal opportunity to discuss these.

This semester when I tried this, the first characteristics of students offered by the groups were “attends class regularly” and “gets to class on time.” I used these offerings to draw their attention to my policies in the CIS regarding attendance and tardiness. “Completes reading assignments” and “hands in homework on time” provided me the opportunity to mention the text and my policy regarding late homework submissions. This dialog, relating their listed items for characteristics of ideal students to my expectations in the CIS proceeded for a good 15 minutes and generated considerable discussion and interaction. As they began to offer their “characteristics of the ideal professor”, this clarified their expectations of me and I was able to address ways in which I attempt to meet these expectations. I pointed out and explained the unrealistic nature of a few of their expectations. The student response to this activity was very positive and it generated a pleasant interactive start to course.

Overall this activity accomplishes the following:

• students have an opportunity to get to know several of their classmates while working together on their lists.
• students’ expectations and instructor expectations are discussed
• policies in the Course Information Sheet are reviewed

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