Welcoming Students on the First Day of Class

i think it's really important for the students to see that i get there
ahead of time
that i'm
organized and ready for them and i take the class very seriously
so that i can expect them to also take the class and parameters of the class very seriously

it's important for me to
have them feel welcome
and what you do when you welcome people into your office into your home
as you greet them at the door you welcome them.
see they're not only
experiencing that themselves i can't read all two hundred and they're
watching you do that with other students
so it's sets a whole tone
for the class that it's welcoming and that i value you and I value getting to know you

even though you may be a
one face and kind of two hundred and more
i value getting to know you
and what i find in my evaluations is that students respond very positively to that.
It's sort of welcoming them into this opportunity to learn together.
i'll talk to them a lot about that two-way process that I'll learn from them
and they'll learn from me.
i'd like to give you a very sincere welcome to HDFS, Human Development and Family Studies 102.

individual and family life development across the life span. My name is Corly Brooke

and I am really pleased to welcome you here.
the students repeatedly tell me that it's very important for them to relate
to me as a person; a human being
i set boundaries around that. i'm very careful what i do tell them that i think it's
important to let them know
that i have a life outside the classroom i have a family. My undergraduate work
here at Iowa Stete
was at kind of right where you're sitting . . . on the other side

I am married.
My husband is the chair of the English department at Grandview College.

i have a daughter who is twenty seven.
They also said tend to respond
to me better in terms of accepting my teaching and the content
if they view me as real person who has a life
and who is struggling with issues
and also succeeding at something. And I'll share those with them.
It's been a wonderful experience
and I will tell you when I sat in your seat, I never thought
i would live my life in Ames, Iowa.
In my case family as the content of the course;
that i will do some sharing about that
just as i'm trying to ask them to do some sharing.
We'll talk about a lot of my personal issues with with my family; a lot of experiences i had

in rearing daughter. My daughter happens to be adopted so we'll talk about some of those issues.
I'll share stories about my family, my father, my daughter, my husband. I have their rapt attention

and I'm careful not to abuse that; the point that it's overdone

that it keeps them interested and also see me as a real person. . . . also be asking you to share some things about your family
nothing that you ever
want to keep confidential do you have to share. It's only what you're willing to
share what you're willing to think about but we all have different contexts of families.

We all have different backgrounds. Some of us have very positive experiences, some of us
mediocre, and some of us some negative experiences as a family.
That's what this course is about and we'll be talking about some of that.
I'll be sharing some of my experiences both positive and negative. And we'll ask you to
share some of yours in this class. It's also very important to me that they

from the very beginning see me respecting the teaching assistants,
the graduate assistants who are in the class
and that i expect them to respect the graduate assistants.
I'm Jennifer Leptien
I'm in the Master's program here at Iowa State in life span studies.
So it's also very important that I introduce them right at the very beginning
they talk about it is a team approach they will meet them as teaching assistants.

They will hear something personable about each one of them too.

I'm Erin Chapman, and I am finishing up my Masters in
HDFS and working towards my PhD.
And this is what i want to do some day so i'm going to do some of the teaching in here.
I'll say "we" many times
and that they have a graduate assistants in front of them
right from the very beginning; that very first day.
But welcome we're going to get to know some about you. At the beginning i asked in
some very nine threatening
descriptive demographic questions just to get them comfortable with responding
how many of you in this class are
sister first semester
okay great
great welcome
things are going ok how dare sophomores
okay great juniors
and seeing that they had this diversity within the classroom that they're
different but also that there people there like that many of you in high
school
come from a graduating class of more than four hundred
how many of you come from a graduating class less than two hundred
stalinist class but does it mean on threatening things and asking them to
respond to you
with this particular course will progress to getting
one morning to you
my own car in-depth questions
they'll ask them to respond to you
something related to their their personal background someone up
but that very initial time missus king them comfortable saint and do you use
questions about demographics that
and to know about them and it
are pretty non-threatening