Syllabus Day

Today I went over the syllabus with all of my Intro classes. To make it more engaging and less of a chore, I created a powerpoint bulleting the most important info and including silly or interesting pictures of myself, family, or pets on each slide.

I did this hoping that it would help the students connect better with me while also stimulating interest in the course. I think all of the classes are apprehensive still because they don't know each other and don't want to look dumb, but my pictures definitely did get some smiles and surprised looks. I definitely hit my stride after the third time presenting. I also had a boost of confidence during the third time because I had an outgoing student help the rest of the class get engaged and excited. It really only takes one student to get the whole class on board! That same student, C., came into class and noticed that the bins with the materials from yesterday weren't on the table. He was like, "Are we not doing the spheres again today?? I've been thinking all day about how I want to change mine!" then proceeded to tell me basically his reflection on his first piece and what he would do differently. I was smiling so big and told how excited it made me that he had thought about those things!

We also played the name game where you say your name and a food or animal that starts with the same letter and then have to repeat everyones names around the circle. Again, the class wasn't super responsive, but I just kept pushing through some of the awkwardness. It was funny though because apparently a girl in an earlier period told her friend that takes the class in a later period that she'd have a lot of fun in class today! So just goes to show that my efforts weren't all for naught. My one issue with the name game is that students always got stuck on students with more unconventional names or names of different cultures. It made me feel bad that that student might have felt like everyone forgot their name or grossly mispronounced it. I might be looking for some other name game.

In AP, I lead a musical chairs critique while Ms. O continued to work with IB. They were critiquing their summer projects and as I was walking around I heard a lot of comments like "Who am I to judge?" or "I don't want to say anything negative!" or "There's nothing I can say, it's perfect!" So I stopped class and explained that critique doesn't mean negative, it's just feedback on what could be done to improve their piece or suggest trying something new. I also went to the more "perfect" artworks students were at and encouraged them to look closer for things that could be improved in a seemingly perfect piece.

Overall a really good day though!