4 ways to break the start-of-semester ice

4 ways to break the start-of-semester ice

At the beginning of every new class, it’s normal to hear your students’ names, get a fact or two about them and just move on. The games can be fun, but the new knowledge tends to fade after class. Instead, use nClass to instantly get to know your students and record their information for future use.

1. Have students fill out a cyber-notecard – In many classes, professors have students fill out their name, year in school and any prerequisites classes they’ve finished. This gauges prior-knowledge of the subject, but often slows down class. With nClass, you don’t have to worry about missing a student or two, losing the cards or bad handwriting. Instead students just fill out a short poll with their smart phones.
2. Play virtual snowball – Many know the classic game of snowball, where students write a fact about themselves on a piece of paper, toss it across the room, pick up someone else’s paper and figure out who wrote the fact. With nClass, you can play this same game, but save some trees. Students simply anonymously post a fact. Then, assign each student a fact to match with one of their colleagues. This will surely avoid the paper clean up while injecting a little fun into the first class.
3. Conduct a syllabus scavenger hunt – have students break into groups and introduce each other. Then, post questions for each group to answer about the syllabus. This allows students to start the semester off working together, while also ensuring they read the syllabus.
4. Create a word cloud on the class itself – when students first enter a class, they have a partial understanding of the subject. Make sure students have a better idea of the material they will be covering by asking them to think of adjectives that describe the subject of the class. Then, you can compile these words into a word cloud with nClass. This a perfect icebreaker to start the class’ first discussion on the material.

How do you break the ice at first? Let us know in the comments!