18.2 The First Lecture

The first lecture of a course is perhaps the most important lecture. It is the lecture that will set the tone for the term and will affect many things. It will modify and set expectations. It will give the students some inkling as to your style, ability to communicate, and it will also inform you about the class and the students.

Students do not come into the class memoryless. They will have expectations and pre-existing perceptions about the course, the course methodology, and course delivery. The expectations will be based on upper year feedback, what might be known about course evaluations, and what courses have been taken. Whenever there is a change in instructor or in expected outcomes (e.g., fixing a course widely perceived as a bird course), the incoming expectations will be important to deal with. A core course will have a set of expectations different from an elective in the program and the expectations will be different for electives taken in other, non-program areas. The expectations will also vary based on year. Junior students will have different expectations than senior students. Lots of expectations to be aware of and to deal with. The students will have perceptions about you, value of attending classes, value of the text book, value of assignments, difficulty of assessments, and so forth.

You, if possible, should have a handle on the incoming expectations and perceptions and either confirm them with the students or deal with them. You might be a new instructor for the course, with a different text book, new assessments, new desired outcomes, new methods, and so forth and these should be identified and discussed in the first lecture. There should be transparency. What is different, what is myth, what is reality, and why are things different (if they indeed are). Of course, some students will not be listening, engaged, or willing to believe; they may be in denial. The worst situation is where the students have elected the course (not a requisite) and they have elected the course based on their expectations, only to find that the game has changed. If the students have no option, they will not be happy campers; if the effort is higher, content more difficult, marks not as easy to get.

Unfortunately, any mistakes made in the first lecture are hard to recover from. The initial impression will be dominant and it does not really matter what the instructor says or does subsequently to fix the situation, some, perhaps most of the students will have one memory and one memory only.

The first lecture also has to set the course and plan for the term. It establishes the value-mapping, motivation, and rationale for why the students should engage and ‘learn’. They should know the learning outcomes and the quality expectations of the instructor. The students should know the assessment schema and planned teaching methods. They should know when things are due and the rough expectations per assessment (e.g., average student will need to spend nn hours to get an average mark). The students should know what is assumed to have been learned in earlier courses; e.g., we will be using blah blah that you learned in blah blah year in blah blah course.



They should know how the TAs will work, how you will work with the TAs, etc.

Given what should be discussed, there is little room for actual ‘new’ material in the first lecture. If necessary and appropriate a short assessment that informs you about the students’ intellectual abilities and informs the students about your style/methods is also a good thing for the first lecture.

The introductory lecture will be somewhat the same but different depending on the year, students enrolled, and past history.

You should consciously spend some time designing the first lecture to deal with tone setting, expectations, and creating the relationship with the class. It should not be left to nature.

Observations...

• Acknowledge any changes to the course since the last offering. What is different with respect to content, learning and assessment methods. Discuss the rationale for any change.
• Give examples of anything that is 100% new. Things that the students would not have prior knowledge about, or would not have experienced in an earlier course.
• Discuss the learning outcomes. These are the high level intellectual goals and examples of specific learning that would demonstrate the necessary level of mastery.
• Explain the specific assessments and expectations for effort. Explain what the average student is expected to do to get an average mark; let the students know what this is. Use suitable caveats of course, especially with small classes where there might be high variance.
• Explain the learning methods that will be used in the course and why they are used; even if not 100% new to the students. With examples. If the students have been exposed to the methods in previous courses, then a discussion can be had with the students; what was done, their experiences, etc.
• Explain the assessment methods that will be used in the course and why they are used; even if not 100% new to the students. With examples. If the students have been exposed to the methods in previous courses, then a discussion can be had with the students; what was done, their experiences, etc.
• Explain how discussions, dialogs, questions, etc. will be dealt with. For example, if it is a longer topic that is not relevant for the whole class, you will cut the discussion short and suggest that the student see you off-line. Or, that you will be using the Socratic Method and that they should not expect answers to every question. When shutting down a question or pushing the Socratic Method, refer the students back to the first lecture where this was explained (they will forget and think you are being rude to them and not others).
• Explain how the TAs will function and work with you (make sure that the TAs attend the first lecture).

• End the class with the bookkeeping, the mechanics, what will happen the next lecture, how students should prepare for it, perhaps an interesting ‘reading’ or website to look at that will complement the value-add, motivation aspect.

Co-dependencies & The Necessary and Hopefully Sufficient

• Caffeine and/or adrenalin. You need to be engergized!
• The content and information is not crammed in; should be in the teach-less, teach-it-better frame of mind. Do not simply assign the informaiton as 'reading'.
• If you are a very junior instructor, you might not want to this stuff unless it is close to the norm for the course already. You do not want to cause eyebrows to rise, unless there is time in the syllabus for it.
• If you are a very junior instructor, have room in the schedule and want to dedicate the first lecture to setup, have a more senior colleague or someone with credibility (e.g., from the institution’s teaching support group) sit in, observe, and participate.
• Should know the past history of the course and what the students are expecting.
• Should discuss expectations and lay out a clear road map for the average student.
• Need to be able to discuss and explain any changes being made, or what methods are being used for delivery or assessment. Not just that something is ‘good’, is ‘considered best practice’, and ‘others are doing it'; need to actually know and share the assumptions and issues.
• Need to have a smooth and confident delivery during the first lecture. You cannot show insecurities, fear, and uncertainty about choices being made. You need to have back up plans and options, but you need to be confident. The students will ‘smell’ the fear and lack of confidence and they must believe that you know what you are doing and that they are in good hands.
• And, even if none of the students will do the reading, be ready with supplementary notes and readings about the learning and assessment methods being used. Some might surprise you and actually care about learning and such.
• If you are introducing changes, the students will not want to be the experiments. You will need to have done enough homework, learning with another instructor etc., to provide sufficient supporting evidence that you know what you are doing and the students are not lab rats.
• If you are allowing the students a voice in certain decisions, accept the consequences and support the decisions. So, be careful what you ask for (as should the students). In these cases, the decisions should impact things at least a couple of weeks in the future and not the next 1-2 lectures. You will need time to adjust and design the course unless you have the various options already in the bag.
• In our own courses, the TAs MUST attend the first class and be onside and aligned with the course assumptions and game plan.

Further reading

• Battino, R. (1980). The importance of being impressive: The opening lecture. Journal of chemical education, 57, 1, p. 67.
• Marlene, K. (1987). Guidelines for a first lecture. Nurse educator, 12, 1, pp. 34-37.
• Banninka, A., and J. van Damb (2013). The first lecture: Playing upon identities and modeling academic roles. Linguistics and Education, 24, pp. 556-571.
• Rasmussen, R.V. (1987). Starting Off With a "Bang!" Rather Than a Whimper: the First Lecture in the Introductory Ob Course. Journal of Management Education, 11, 3, pp. 16-28. Volume 11, Issue 3