Body
Review the pedagogical and technical information below to inform your progress in Week One. Have questions about what you learned here or ideas for future tips? Join Coffee & Answers (open support Zoom sessions with the Academic Technology Team) or email the Office of Teaching and Learning.
Pedagogical
How can you set the right tone on day one?
A good first day of class engages students in the habits of mind that they will encounter throughout your course. Rather than reading the syllabus out loud, it’s helpful to begin to know your students and model the kinds of engaged learning that you hope they will explore during the semester.
Questions you may want to consider include:
-
How can you introduce yourself to students in a way that shows your engagement with your discipline?
-
How will you communicate with your students? (Canvas email or announcements or some other method?)
-
What are the most important parts of the syllabus that you want to emphasize?
-
What is the best way to learn in your class? I.e. mention opportunities for study groups, tutoring, or coming to office hours early in the semester.
For a comprehensive guide to the first day of class, pedagogical specialist James Lang has written a thorough introduction.
Knowing who your students are is often a helpful place to begin. In this short piece from Inside Higher Ed, the author describes how to use a brief survey to get to know students. Google forms is one way to do this electronically, and giving students class time to complete the form guarantees a response.
Other ways to create a welcoming classroom community include icebreakers which give students a chance to learn more about each other. In this short article, Marguerite Mayhill describes an opening exercise in an art history class that not only engages students, but also introduces them to the discipline.
Technical
What does it mean to "publish" my course?
One of the first things you will do in Canvas at the start of the semester will be to publish your course. A simple click of a button will allow students to see your course and have access to content.
How do I know exactly what students are seeing in my Canvas course?
A great way to get a feel for how your course will look from a student perspective is to use the Student View feature in Canvas. This view allows you to act as a student and do things like post and reply to discussions, submit assignments, view grades, view people, view pages, view the syllabus, view quizzes, view the calendar.
Vocabulary
-
Learning Management System (LMS) - a website that allows students and instructors to interact. Instructors can share course content, administer assessments, grade assignments, and more. Students can take exams, submit assignments, complete course readings, and more.
-
Canvas - the LMS that Saint Joseph’s University uses
-
Canvas Course - a digital space to house content for each section of a course, also referred to as a shell
-
Knowledge Base - SJU’s internal database of articles and service requests
-
The Nest - SJU’s internal website, which houses many helpful links, including a direct link to Canvas
Additional Resources