Last week we looked at things we needed to know before school started. This week we delve into what we should be telling students the first day of class.
It sounds silly but trust me on this one. Introductions are a big deal. Sometimes names can be hard to pronounce. If you have a sometimes difficult name to pronounce, like mine, you might consider an alternative name that is easier. I let students call me Mr. W or Mr. Dubs if they have trouble saying Wilkinson. Which doesn’t seem hard to say but you would be surprised at how many times I get called Wilkerson or Wikison, but I digress…
It isn’t all about the name. Make sure students know a little bit about you. Start with a short list of the things you like (that are school appropriate!). Students want to know you a bit. It helps build report if they can connect with you on something. You might consider asking them a few questions about themselves too. There are lots of ways to do this: get to know you questions, questionnaire, or even assignments designed to get students to tell you a bit about themselves. I would not spend the whole class on this. A few minutes and you are golden. Honestly, getting to know your students will be a whole year thing. Treat it like a marathon and occasionally do things to learn more about your students.
You need to cover classroom rules and procedures. I know, I know, it is boring. It is monotonous, it feels like you are covering things everyone already knows. But, it will be one of the most important things you do. Students need to know what your expectations are. If you never tell them they will be left guessing. If they guess wrong it could upset you. You will save yourself a lot of frustration, and your students a lot of worrying, if you just tell them what you want. Remember all of those things we covered last post? That is the stuff you go over here. Be sure to let students know they can always ask questions if they do not know what to do. Students are getting 4-8 lists of rules and procedures on the first day of school. It is only natural to jumble some of that stuff up. Have grace when they ask you where to turn stuff in or when they forget to sharpen their pencil before class starts. Just like getting to know your students, rules and procedures are things you will be covering all year long.
If you are going to be doing any kind of lab, you need to cover lab safety. We do not want our students getting hurt. The best thing we can do is to talk about how we can stay safe in the lab. And you guessed it, this will also be something we will be covering all year long. Before every lab we will remind students about relevant lab safety guidelines. I recommend sending home a lab safety contract. Get your students to read the lab safety contract and have their parents sign it.
If your lab is in your classroom be sure to explain when it is and when it is not okay to enter the lab. If your lab is in a separate room, think about giving them a tour. Remember to mention where the fire extinguishers are. Don’t forget to show them the emergency eye wash station and the chemical shower. Show them proper goggle usage. I like to say, “Goggles are not neck protectors, they are not forehead protectors, they are eye protectors. Make sure they cover your eyes!” In my experience, this is the most broken lab safety rule. Students complain that they cannot see clearly through the plastic. Which I get, but its a nice trade off. Not see ultra-high resolution for the 30min we are in lab, or potentially not see for the rest of your life. I’ll take the I can’t see super clear for a few minutes option please!
So now we have introduced our selves, talked a bit about how the classroom functions, and emphasised lab safety. So that was like 15 minutes and we have the rest of class. That is a lot of time to fill. We are teaching biology, so a good place to start is with life. What is life anyway? Have you ever tried to define it? I mean it is really easy to see. Rock, not alive, rabbit very alive (at least before your dog sees it). Let students discuss this with their classmates and try to come up with some things that all organisms have in common. I like to do a round robin where each student writes a guess on a piece of paper and then passes it to the left. Round robins and other group activities are easy if you use Card Groups. You can get the Card Groups FREE resource here.
You might be wondering “why should I start with the characteristics of life?” Like, why not start with philosophy of science. To which I say, the philosophy of science is also a good starting place. A better place if you are teaching a combined course like IPC or middle school science or somewhere that life is not the focus of the whole course. But life is the focus of biology. That is why we start with the characteristics of life. What about evolution? Shouldn’t we start with evolution? YES! The characteristics of life introduce evolution. Not just that, it also introduces a lot of topics that will be covered in more detail later in the year. Topics like the cell theory, heredity, enzymes, and homeostasis. Just like good teaching lesson design the curriculum sequence should also say what we are going to say, say it, and then say what we said. This is saying what we are going to say. It is a great introduction for the whole year.
Once students have had a chance to talk, give them a chance to share with the class. Have each group say at least one guess out loud to the whole class. It is okay if the answers are not right. It is the first day of class. We do not expect anyone to actually know the correct answers. We are basically letting students make a hypothesis. If you have students snicker at some of the answers or call each other stupid or dumb, remind them that everyone, even you, had to learn this stuff. No one is born with this knowledge. The whole point of students going to school is because they do not know it yet. That is why they are here in your class, to learn what they don’t know. After discussing some of the guesses as a whole class, start your lesson.
What?! You don’t have a lesson on the characteristics of life? No worries, you can use this one right here. I know it says self-paced, but you can use it for whole class instruction too. It has a nice introduction that describes what students are going to learn. That is the learning targets aka objectives in “teacher-speak”. It follows that up by pre-teaching vocabulary. Which is very useful for covering your accommodations for students who are still learning English. That is Emerging Bilinguals (formerly called English Language Learners) in “teacher-speak”. After that, each slide has a paragraph that covers a digestible part of the lesson, two questions, and relevant pictures to keep your students attention. Oh, and did I mention there is a worksheet you can print and give to students to follow along with? The What is Life sel-paced lesson also has a quick post-assessment. The post-assessment has 10 questions that review what is covered in the lesson. It is everything you need to teach the characteristics from start to finish.
Every class should end with a time to review what was learned. I like to let my students write a summary of what they learned in class. Since it is the first day and all, you will need to cover exactly what you want students to do at the end of class. Spell it out for them step-by-step so they know what to do. Recap what you talked about and the let them work on the cool down assignment. You might not know what a cool down assignment is. It is the term I use to describe what students do at the end of class. At the beginning of class there is the warm-up so it makes since for the end of class to have a cool down. Students need something to help them transition from class to the next thing. Here is an example of the steps in a cool down activity:
Review what you talked about in class
Let students summarize what was covered in their notes
Start on the homework if any OR
Chat about the end of class question
For todays lesson the end of class question is an intriguing one: are viruses alive? It is important not to give the answer to the end of class question until the next day of class. We want students thinking about this question throughout the day. If you do it right, they will be talking with everyone about this very question. And if students are talking about biology outside of class, I mean really talking about it, then we have succeeded as educators. So what do you think, are viruses living? The answer just might shock you. Don’t worry, I won’t leave you hanging for ever. I will write the answer in my next post.
So you made it to the end of the post! Congratulations! I am glad your here. As a reward, how about you check out this FREE worksheet over the characteristics of life? It has something many people don’t really talk about. But I think it is important. You know every cell, the things that make up every living thing, they have some common features. Every cell has five structures in common. This worksheet covers all the characteristics of life, and the five common structures in every cell. Curious? Take a look right now and get a FREE worksheet to help close out your first day of class. Happy teaching!
