Dedicated to relinquishing responsibility for learning to the students Home About Workshops Publications Contact First Day of School? Here’s How to Get Students Thinking Peter Pappas » 09 August 2010 » In How To, Strategies » As a social studies high school teacher, I faced over 25 years of the first day of school. When I first began teaching, I did usual thing – working through the class list (“do you prefer Patrick, or Pat?), a dry recitation of the class rules, passing out the textbooks. Blah, blah, blah – think of the message it sent to my students. As my teaching style evolved from the lecture / work sheet model into a more engaged learning environment, I redefined how I wanted to introduce my students to my course. I also came to understand that it was imperative that I get all my students to contribute a few comments to the class during those first few days. Very quickly classes learn which students are the talkers and non-talkers. Once those roles are locked in – it’s very difficult for student for break out of them. So I didn't waste the opening week of school introducing the course – my students solved murder mysteries. I took simplified mysteries and split them into 25-30 clues, each on a single strip of paper. You can download one of the mysteries and a set of rules from my website. I used a random count off to get the kids away from their buddies and into groups of 5-6 students. Each group got a complete set of clues for the mystery. Each student in the group got 4-5 clues that they could not pass around to the other students. They had to share the clues verbally in the group and that guaranteed that every student is a talker on day one. While the students worked to solve the mystery – I concentrated on learning the student names. After I introduced the mystery, I bet them that by the end of the first class, I could go around the room and recite their names. While they worked on the mystery, I circulated getting to know students and their names. Another message – in this class, we’re all learners. Over the next few days we would process their problem solving skills, group dynamics, differences between relevant and irrelevant information and introduce the idea of higher-order thinking like analysis, evaluation and creating. We might even have time to try another mystery to see if they got better. ~ Originally posted August 27, 2008 ~ Photo credit: Flickr / walknboston Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Digg del.icio.us StumbleUpon 0 You might also like 1. Start Your New School Year with Rigor and Relevance 2. First Day of School? Don’t Pass Out Books – Problem Solve! 3. Teacher-Led Professional Development: Eleven Reasons Why You Should be Using Classroom Walk Throughs 4. Learning from Centuries of Play: Students Reenact Bruegel’s “Children’s Games” 5. Why Don’t We Teach Sequencing Skills? It’s an Essential Higher-Order Thinking Strategy Tags: Engagement, Evaluation, Higher-order thinking Trackback URL 7 Comments on "First Day of School? Here’s How to Get Students Thinking" 1. annie pettit 19/08/2010 at 7:42 pm Permalink Interesting idea but that still wouldn’t have got me to speak beyond what was forced. Are you able to get the really shy kids to speak willingly? 2. Peter Pappas 19/08/2010 at 11:54 pm Permalink Hi Annie, My experience in the classroom was that a pattern of “talker” and “non-talkers” gets established very early. In this activity, students are given a limited number of clues and must share them verbally (rather than pass them to a “leader”). It gives the shy kids a chance to contribute and breaks the mold of “non-talker.” If you do enough activities like this early in the course it establishes a more balance level of contributions from all students. Not perfect, but headed in the right direction. It sure beats passing out books and reading the class rules. PS. I trust you conquered your shyness (I was a stutterer – you wouldn’t have heard much from me!) 3. Keishla Ceaser-Jones 29/08/2010 at 10:43 pm Permalink Peter, I want to thank you again for your mystery idea. Last year I took the idea, and I created a campus specific mystery for my students. We have an AP on our campus that loves t talk on his megaphone/bullhorn. So they solved the mystery of the missing megaphone which involved suspects from our campus staff. You are right…it is definitely a break from what they normally do in other classes, and it gets them talking and thinking. On day two, I did a debriefing on group dynamics and problem solving skills that I segued into the 3 Story Intellect. It went perfectly. We had a great discussion about postive/negative group characteristics and what’s good and challenging about working in groups. It let the students know right away that this class was about THEM and not ME! Thanks again! 4. Peter Pappas 30/08/2010 at 12:55 pm Permalink Keishla, Its inspiring to see how you took the “foundation” of my lesson idea and built so many great learning experience upon it. Most importantly, your students were provided with a engaging introduction to your course. Keep up the great work and say hi to friends in Cy-Fair! 5. Charles Herzog 09/09/2010 at 2:08 pm Permalink Thanks for the lesson. I just finished it with my 6th graders. Check this out. There are more “reveals” at the website linked below. http://vimeo.com/14832417 Charlie @PJ_Vermont http://fbus6.weebly.com 6. Peter Pappas 10/09/2010 at 1:13 pm Permalink Charles, Thanks for sharing the links to your videos. I hope some of my readers check them out. The kids are great! I spent some time on your website and it’s clear you have an engaged bunch of kids. Have a great school year! Peter Trackbacks 1. Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… - The Best Resources For Planning The First Day Of School 08/08/2011 at 4:38 pm [...] Peter Pappas, as always, has some very creative and useful ideas at First Day of School? Here’s How to ... Hi Stranger, leave a comment: Name (required) Mail (will not be published) (required) Website ALLOWED XHTML TAGS: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong> Submit Comment Notify me of followup comments via e-mail Subscribe to Comments « Back To School: Will It Be Test Prep or Project Based Learning? Teaching Continuity and Change: Crowdsourcing My Lesson Idea » Subscribe to Posts Find Me Search this blog... Peter Pappas I am proud of my life-long career in public education - especially the 25 years I spent as a teacher. 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Flint, MI reading PBL Resource Site How to Plan, Manage and Evaluate grab this · education blog Top Posts - PostRank 10.0 Teachers, Have the Courage to be Less Helpful 9.1 How to Flip Your Classroom – and Get Your Students to Do the Work 7.6 Following the Backchannel at Microsoft Innovative Education Forum 6.4 PBL Resource Site - How to Plan, Manage and Evaluate 5.9 Students Reflect on Their Learning 5.8 How To Make the Block Schedule Work Powered by Postrank Twitter updates @kassissieh You can add mine - so what's a WP aggregator? 23 mins ago RT @actionhero: RT @kassissieh: New blog post: iPads at Lewis Elementary http://t.co/GtuGTvA #edcamppdx #lewiselementary 24 mins ago RT @kassissieh: New blog post: Digital Revolution http://t.co/tH24hLg #projector 37 mins ago @butwait Remember that school vision statement about "life-long learners?" When's that supposed to get started? After they graduate? 14 hours ago @HHG So true - much could be done to make both "systems" serve as catalysts to self-sustaining reflection. 14 hours ago Recent Comments Following the Backchannel at edcampPDX (1) ! Colette Cassinelli: Thanks Peter for using Storify to capture our day and thanks for all of your promotion... 18 Literacy Strategies for Struggling Readers – Defining, Summarizing and Comparing (13) ! Peter Pappas: Hi Gina, Glad to be of help. Hope you have a great school year ~ Peter ! teacher gina: I am an ESL teacher and teaching students to read is a difficult task for me. i am looking for... 9 Questions for Reflective School Reform Leaders (7) ! Peter Pappas: Doug, Thanks for providing all the great links – #140edu must have been a very cool event.... How To Make the Block Schedule Work (2) ! Peter Pappas: Hi Peter, Glad you reminded us of the differences among some of the configurations of the block... 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