You might be surprised to hear this but professors are just as nervous for the first day of class as the students are, or at least I am. I, like many scientists, am a bit of an introvert. Meeting a lot of people all at once, in any context, has always been anxiety provoking for me. In the last three days I have met over 100 students. I'm teaching two lab sections of 21-22 students each and one large lecture of 60 students. Here I am looking out at all these eyes with expressions of nervousness, skepticism, determination, excitement, boredom... They are evaluating me as as professor, trying to figure out how tough or easy my class will be, how much they will be able to get away with and whether they can trust me to respect them. When I first started teaching I was also nervous about being taken seriously and conveying intellectual authority. I would deal with my nervousness by putting a bit of a wall between myself and the students and treating the lecture as a performance where I would try to impart as much information as possible.
Since then I have changed my approach to first days, due in part to a workshop through a program called Faculty Explorations in Scientific Teaching (FEST). I go in to class trying to channel my most extroverted self. I greet students individually as they enter the classroom and introduce myself by my first name. Then, towards the beginning of class I ask students to fill out a notecard with their name, major/career goal, something fun they did over the summer and one unique thing or hobby. I then have students stand up, walk around the room and introduce themselves to each other and talk about their summer vacation. Before taking the workshop I wouldn't have thought to do this in class, it seems maybe frivolous, or that I'm trying to fill time when they could be learning something. But I have been surprised that allowing students to talk to each other really sets a positive and cooperative tone for the class. The other bonus is that I then get to sit my office afterwards and read the notecards. The notecards make me smile and laugh. Some of the students share such surprising and funny things about themselves. My favorite this year is a student who told me that he is color blind, but his favorite color is "green." My students traveled all over the world this summer, some tackled a difficult hike for the first time or spent the summer studying for MCATs. Reading these notecards makes me feel good about my students and when I look out at all of those staring eyes they feel a little bit less like strangers.
I won't lie, teaching while actively engaging with the students takes a lot out of me, sometimes I go home and just need to lie on my couch in silence and talk to no one, but it is also a lot more fun and more rewarding. I'm looking forward to good semester full of active and cooperative learning.
