http://fawnnguyen.com/first-two-days-school/
I have a love-hate relationship with first days of school. On the one hand, I love school. On the other, the first day can be filled with the drudgery of introductions and reviews of syllabi. I cringe to remember one year when I was teaching that I required a significant chunk of the *first 3 days* of class to review my entire syllabus. I somehow convinced myself that if I just explained things clearly enough from the beginning, the rest of the year would go well. I can't say my year went poorly, but I eventually learned that if I wanted a certain kind of mathematical activity and student engagement in my class, my best strategy was to get students involved in those activities right from the start. Fawn Nguyen obviously knows this and I'm happy that she wrote about her approach to the first two days of school.
I have a love-hate relationship with first days of school. On the one hand, I love school. On the other, the first day can be filled with the drudgery of introductions and reviews of syllabi. I cringe to remember one year when I was teaching that I required a significant chunk of the *first 3 days* of class to review my entire syllabus. I somehow convinced myself that if I just explained things clearly enough from the beginning, the rest of the year would go well. I can't say my year went poorly, but I eventually learned that if I wanted a certain kind of mathematical activity and student engagement in my class, my best strategy was to get students involved in those activities right from the start. Fawn Nguyen obviously knows this and I'm happy that she wrote about her approach to the first two days of school.