(a near-transcript of Episode #13 from The Uplift podcast)

One of my favorite things about this time of year is that my social media feeds are full of back-to-school photos. I get to see pictures of kids who are off to their first day of preschool or kindergarten, or their first day of high school, and all the grades in between. I get to see photos of young adults off to their first day of college, or maybe even returning for their second, third, or final years. This time last year I even posted a picture of my husband’s first day of his last year of nursing school.

We go into our first days with so much excitement and enthusiasm. We get our hair cut, we break out new clothes, maybe we treat ourselves to a new bookbag or buy fresh notebooks and new pens. The bolder and younger among us might put a new cover on our laptop and slap thought-provoking stickers on it. One way or another, we celebrate this fresh start and approach our first days with excitement and energy. 

Given how much we love the start of the new school year and all the energy and importance we give the first day, this seems like a great time to explore how we as leaders can create amazing first days for the folks we’re responsible for. Here I want to focus on two different kinds of first days – the first day of class, and the first day on a new job – and share some concrete, actionable steps you can take to ensure that those first days are the best first days ever. 

I learned the phrase “the best first day ever” from one of my favorite colleagues, Julio Rivera. Julio is a gifted teacher, a talented administrator, and a generous leader. He shared this phrase with me last year, when I was onboarding new team members and asked my colleagues to share their favorite onboarding ideas. I love the idea of intentionally creating “the best first day ever” because it fits with my focus on purpose and joy. An amazing first day will leave people excited to come back for more. 

Now, I’m the first to admit that I still haven’t figured this all out. Everybody’s best first day is context specific, and planning truly awesome first days takes a ton of time and, like everything worth doing, some trial and error. But I learned a long time ago one single principle for creating the best first day for students, and I’ve found over the years that that principle has myriad applications. More recently, when I read Priya Parker’s book The Art of Gathering, I found echoes of this principle in the ways she focuses on  creating purposeful gatherings. Whether your gathering is a first day of class or a first day for new colleagues, the ways you think about planning for those moments can be really similar. 

So in today’s episode I want to share that one guiding principle, and then break it down into four simple principles, followed by actionable strategies you can use as you prepare for your first day, whomever it’s with. 

So what was that originating principle? I have my grad school friend and teaching colleague Susan Koenig to thank for this one, as it’s something she learned from a TA training at UW-Madison. Susan and I co-taught a number of times, and she frequently referred back to this session and its simple guidance for new instructors: whatever you are going to spend the semester doing, also do on the first day of class. 

Let me say that again: whatever you’re going to do all semester, start by doing it on your first day. 

I learned very early in my teaching career how powerful first days can be. I’d like to share one of my best first days ever, which was with a creative writing class I was teaching in Fall 2001. College-level creative writing classes are often run on the workshop model, where each class includes a few writers sharing their work and having it critiqued. This requires building trust and rapport as a group, and also getting comfortable with giving and receiving both praise and constructive criticism. My students start doing this work on the first day, which is often the most difficult, uncomfortable day of the whole semester.

For this particular class, on our first day I gave students 15 minutes to write a poem that introduced themselves. They were stricken – I mean honestly, they all looked so terrified. Writing poetry is hard, is NOT best done under pressure or duress, and writing a poem about yourself for people you don’t know creates this weird feeling of shameless aggrandizement. But they all did it – and because this is how I roll, I did it too – and then we spent the rest of class having students practice two important activities they would do all semester: reading their own work out loud, and giving each other useful feedback. Each student introduced themselves by reading their poem – I asked them not to say anything else  – and then the class had to offer up three points of specific praise about the writing. We didn’t move on to the next writer until three pieces of specific, concrete praise had been offered. The start of the workshop was predictably awkward and uncomfortable, but by the end we were all laughing and comfortable with each other. 

So that was a good first day, and while I was glad for it, I didn’t think much of it. But as it turned out, all of what we’d done really mattered by day 2. 

This particular class met for 2.5 hours every Thursday afternoon. So our first session was Tuesday September 6. Five days later, four airplanes were hijacked by terrorists and nearly 3,000 people were killed as the planes were crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York, into the Pentagon, and finally, into a field in Pennsylvania where the plane was diverted by its heroic passengers. 

My creative writing class met for the second time just 48 hours later. 

We entered the classroom still reeling from shock and our shared national trauma. AND…we knew we were coming together in a familiar space where the students already knew they were seen and valued, not only by me but by each other. We were able to process the events of that Fall because we had our first day together doing and saying hard things that required bravery and compassion. If I had spent that first day going through the syllabus and reviewing logistics, our second day together would have been very difficult indeed.

That experience taught me not to take first days for granted. And because lots of what I learned by teaching college students has informed how I lead, I have carried that commitment to first days into my work as an administrator and team leader. 

But…designing an amazing first day is not a simple task. It takes time, effort, and a good dose of creativity. So today I’m going to break it down into four simpler, actionable guidelines, with practical examples,  you can use whether you’re leading in the classroom, leading in the boardroom, or somewhere in between. 

I should add that these examples are all specific to in-person gatherings, mostly because I know many of us around the country are back on campus for our teaching and meetings. However, many of these ideas are easily adaptable to hybrid or remote settings…but to keep things simple, today I’m just focusing on first days that are in-person.

Principle #1: Galvanize your guests. 

Galvanizing your guests means creating a mood that people experience when they enter, lifting everyone’s energy and vibe, so that your gathering has a feeling all its own.

Imagine this first day of class: students trickle in during the 3-4 minutes before class starts, and then the professor hurries in at the last minute, a little flustered and harried, and spends the first five minutes of class getting the tech set up and  distributing paper copies of the syllabus. 

Now for comparison’s sake imagine THIS first day: as students walk in, the professor greets everyone at the door. She tells them her name and her in-use pronouns, welcomes them to class and asks how they would like to be addressed, and encourages them to grab a chair in one of the small groups that are already set up and asks them to introduce themselves to the students who come sit with them. The tech is already set up and a slide show with an upbeat soundtrack is playing at the front of the room. When the students sit it’s natural for them to talk because they’ve been primed to be conversational: they’ve already spoken to the professor, and they’ve been given the assignment to keep the conversation going by chatting with each other. 

These are fictional extremes, but think about them for a moment. They create totally different first impressions, and set entirely different tones for the classroom. One example galvanizes the students: they are literally welcomed into a room that has been thoughtfully planned and has a buzzing energy; the other creates a sense of purposelessness, with students aimlessly wondering and waiting for something to happen. 

So when you think about galvanizing your guests, think about designing those opening moments so that when your students or your new colleague begin their first activity they are immediately charged with positive energy. 

How can you galvanize your students on Day 1? 

I’m going to share two examples from Priya Parker’s book. 

>> Show your students that they matter to you personally.  Parker tells the story of Sugata Roychowdhury, an accounting professor she once had who took attendance on the first day in a mesmerizing way: he “walked around the room, holding eye contact with the seventy or so new students in the lecture hall, and, one by one, pointed at each student and stated their (sometimes quite complicated) first and last names. They had never laid eyes on him before, nor he them. He took the entire class’s attendance from memory. We were mesmerized. He must have studied our photos and practiced our names for hours ahead of time. This is an example of taking a totally banal element of gatherings – roll call– and, with a few hours of effort, transforming it into a dramatic opening.” (180)

>> Demonstrate a key tenet of the course.

Parker tells another story of a first day of class, this one about Ronalid Heifetz, a professor at Harvard Kennedy School. On the first day of his course on Adaptive Leadership, he begins in silence. As students enter, he’s sitting in the front of the lecture hall staring at the ground with a bored expression on his face. He doesn’t change his expression or his position, and as the minutes tick by students get increasingly agitated and nervous. Eventually someone will ask, tentatively, “is this the right class….?” and the wondering comments proceed from there. “Is he just going to sit there?” “I don’t have all day.” “So what should we do…?” After what feels like an eternity but is likely four or five minutes, Heifetz looks up and says “Welcome to Adaptive Leadership.” The relief in the room is palpable. 

I love this example for how risky it is. In a course on leadership, Heifetz shows his students how awful it is when the person in charge abdicates leadership carelessly, in a way that provokes anxiety and confusion. He shows the effects of not doing the very thing he’s going to spend the semester teaching. (75-77)

How can you galvanize your new colleague on Day 1? 

How do you translate this idea into the workplace and galvanize new colleagues on their first day? 

Think about what will create a sense of energy and vitality as the very first thing your new colleague experiences. The usual first experiences are things like a group orientation, a campus-wide presentation, or completing paperwork and getting a key and ID. These things are important and I’m not downplaying them. They are just not exciting first things, and if you do them first, then you have created a hurdle you and your new colleague now have to jump over if you want to get beyond the slow start and build some momentum. So if it’s at all possible, work with your campus onboarding team on a structure for the first day that gives you the ability to create excitement and enthusiasm out of the gate. 

Here are a few ideas to consider:

>> Bring a “welcome wagon.” 

Ask a group of colleagues to gather to greet and welcome the new person in a 30-minute welcome party over coffee and bagels. Have your current colleagues gather in the space before you walk your new colleague in. You can do something simple, like put up some simple welcome decor, play some music, and give your new colleague a swag bag. Or you can get more personal, and ask your invited guests each to bring a welcome gift for the new person – something they think is essential for a new employee at your institution. These can be simple –  a coffee mug, a branded pen, a reusable tote, a sweatshirt for game days, masks with your campus logo…whatever. The gifts can even be extensions of the personalities or roles of the gift giver: the CFO could bring a calculator, admissions could bring a sheet of the stickers they give prospective stickers, the director of dining could bring a reusable to-go container to use in the dining hall. (And as an aside – if folks need to purchase any of these gifts, have them charge them to your office budget.) The important thing is that in the act of welcoming new colleagues, your existing colleagues create meaningful, personal connections. 

>> Create a warm office environment. 

If the first thing your new colleague will do is put down their personal belongings in their work space, have that space ready and waiting for them. This is pretty basic but it’s easy to overlook: Make sure their workspace is thoroughly cleaned, stocked with sharpened pencils and fresh pens, notebooks, a functioning computer and phone, and all the office supplies they’ll need. Put a plant in the office if that’s your thing. Before your new colleague arrives, turn the lights on, lift the blinds to bring in light, and maybe even put some music on. This is not to say the new person is going to keep the office this way, just that you’re making the point of creating a welcoming environment that shows the person you’ve cared enough to prepare for them. 

Principle #2. Create meaningful engagement. 

My kids, who are in high school, study on a block schedule, meaning they spend 90 minutes in four classes each day, with an A-day schedule and a B-day schedule. My daughter loves her B-day schedule, which starts with physics. I asked her on her third B day what she was doing that day, and she said excitedly, “I think we’re actually going to do physics today!” They had spent the whole first two days – three hours of her life, or more than 60 collective human hours if you add up the time spent in the classroom by all her classmates and the teacher – doing….not much at all. 

Now, I get it. The school has a two-week add/drop window, and teachers don’t want to disadvantage students who are adjusting their schedules and might miss the first class or two. But that is planning for the margins – it is planning for a scenario that might affect one, two, or possibly NONE of the students – while ignoring the needs of the people who are present. It’s a tough balance to achieve. 

Any time you gather folks you’re creating a kind of social contract, one that is specific and relevant only to the people in the room. So if you’re planning for meaningful engagement, you have to prioritize the people who are present. 

How can you create meaningful engagement on Day 1 of class? 

Let me share two of my favorite examples from other people.

>> Scavenger hunts. 

This idea comes from a teaching colleague of mine. In a course designed to help first-year students deepen their cultural competence, she sends them out onto campus and the surrounding neighborhood on a culture-related scavenger hunt. In small groups, students are asked to take photos of things – anything from buildings to billboards, from found objects to living beings – that contribute to their understanding of the cultural milieu the students find themselves in. This activity has students working in teams to solve problems and uncover meaning, which prompts new conversations and is, almost always, pretty fun. 

>> Group problem-solving. 

In The Art of Gathering Priya Parker tells a story about Wendy Woon, who runs the department of education at the Museum of Modern Art. Wendy teaches a course for graduate students “who are aspiring to be museum educators,” and one of her course goals is to teach students that how a space is designed “affects how people engage with ideas, content, and each other.” She also wants students to understand that this is true of social space, physical space, and emotional space. 

On the first day of her class, students walk into their classroom, which is inside the museum, and find a giant tangled pile of chairs in the middle of the room. Nothing else. Woon is present but is silent. Here’s how Parker describes what happens next:

“Eventually the students begin talking to one another. Little by little, their confidence growing, their interactions becoming more amusing by the minute, they untangle the chairs and arrange them. And as they do so, each student must decide what to do with his or her chair without instructions: Where should I put my chair? How close should the chair be to someone else’s? Are we forming rows? A circle? If someone is not going along with the group shape, what should we do?”

This activity teaches students the core tenet of the course: that in a museum, “you must actually design a ‘space’ for exchange and then also then invite participation by design.” (56-67) The students learn something about their discipline, and they learn things about each other, all by solving an unusual problem together. 

What can meaningful engagement look like for a new colleague?

With new colleagues we often default to introductions – getting new folks in front of the people they’ll be working and collaborating with on a regular basis. I have been guilty of this myself, in part because it’s often a cultural expectation – people want meetings with new colleagues as a way to get to know each other. I’m all for introductions! I just  want to push all of us – myself included – to make those introductions meaningful. 

Here are three ways you can set up meaningful introductions:

1. Organize project-based meetings.

Have your new colleague sit in on ongoing meetings for an existing project. This way they’ll meet their collaborators for that work, and they’ll meet them in the context of the task at-hand. It’s OK if the meeting is overwhelming and they don’t understand everything that’s going on; this will provide them context for asking questions and learning what they need to figure out, and questions are important components of two other strategies I’m going to discuss in a few minutes. 

If your new colleague is stepping into an ongoing project, ask someone working on that project to assign a portion of it to the new person. This delegation gives your current colleague the opportunity to contextualize the project, sharing relevant background to the project as well as its overarching purpose, while the new colleague gets a chance to have a focused, purposeful conversation with a new colleague. An assignment like this establishes your existing colleague as a source of information and support, and can help their working relationship get off to a good start. 

2. Share a group meal. 

I’ve mentioned in other episodes how powerful the concept of “food and fellowship” can be. You can use this to your advantage on your new colleague’s first day. Whether you start your day together over coffee, have lunch just the two of you or with a larger group, or end the day with a happy hour, use the opportunity of eating together to build relationships intentionally. 

The most important thing is to shape the meal as a meaningful gathering. Don’t just invite folks to coffee or lunch and then hope for the best. Determine a purpose for the meal – beyond eating together, and beyond “getting to know each other” – and use that purpose to decide who to invite and how to kick off conversation. I’ll give you a few random examples that are totally designed to spark your own thinking:

• Is your new colleague new to the area? If so, host a lunch with folks who have lived in the area for a while, and ask them each to tell the new person two things they love doing on the weekends. 

• Is your new colleague going to be managing projects? Host a morning coffee session with 6 folks on campus who are known for their productivity and efficiency. Ask them each to give the new person one project management hack that will help them work with your particular institutional systems. 

• Is your new colleague starting in an entry-level position? Host a happy hour with 4-6 other entry-level colleagues and ask them each to share one thing the new person should definitely do to get acclimated. 

Principle #3. Spark curiosity. 

As a human at work, I love wondering about things. Sparking curiosity at work and in the classroom is a great way to help folks be genuinely engaged and excited. Curiosity is pretty magical. It’s the opposite of boredom. 

Now, sure, it’s important for folks to get basic information. Students need to know what’s in the syllabus and what they can do to succeed in their course, and new colleagues need handbooks, important policies, and office expectations so they can fully join the team. There’s  nothing wrong with providing this info on the first day. But walking through policies and logistics is boring, and doing it first is kind of mind-numbing. Instead, spark people’s curiosity and let their engagement be the context in which you talk about logistics and expectations. 

How can you spark curiosity in the classroom on Day 1?

This one is easy, right? There are endless ways to get students thinking about your course topic even before they know much about the course, you, or each other. I’ll give you three different examples:

>> Link your topic to something that matters to them. Have them watch a TikTok, read a current news article, or listen to a podcast episode. OR give them 5 minutes on their phone to find something in their social media feeds that is related to the topic. Then use the course content to generate questions: You can ask them questions, OR even have them ask questions…in pairs, small groups, as a full class, or on notecards to you. Use the questions to spark an in-class discussion, so that they get an immediate payoff for being curious.  This is especially useful for discussion-based courses, as it gets students practicing talking to each other from the beginning. 

>> Have students participate in a methodology they’ll use in class. For example, if you’re teaching a class involving research protocols, statistics, or sampling, you could poll your students about their knowledge of some topic – any topic, really –  and then show the poll results in real time and talk about sampling or analysis. If they’ll be doing a lot of textual analysis, have them practice close-reading and annotating texts. Think about the intellectual work they’ll do all semester, and get them immersed in it right away. 

>> Use an icebreaker grounded in curiosity and connections. Flip the script on icebreakers where students introduce themselves, and have them meet each other by asking questions. I’ve learned two ways to do this from a colleague of mine in education. One is called Phone Photo Phun and the other is called Uncommon Commonalisties. 

• Phone Photo Phun is kind of a combination of Bingo and Speed-dating. Create and hand out something that looks like a Bingo card, with each square containing the sort of thing people take photos of. Have students move around the classroom talking to each other, trying to check off as many boxes as they can because they’ve found someone with a photo to match the category. For example, if you’re teaching an Introductory Biology course, your categories could be things like “Reptile,” “Mammal,” “Photosynthesis,” “Germs”, and so on. If you’re teaching a writing class, your categories could be things like “writer at work,” “tools of the trade,” “words that motivate,” and so on. Think broadly and creatively about the sorts of things we snap photos of – which seems to be virtually everything these days – and then create a small table – it could have as few as nine items on it – for your students to use to connect their daily lives to your course content. If you’re curious, I’ve dropped a link in the shownotes to a general example of what a Phone Photo Phun bingo card can look like. 

• Uncommon Commonalities. I learned this activity from the same person who taught me Phone Photo Phun and the Culture Scavenger Hunt. (I’m telling you, if you haven’t yet made friends with your colleagues in Education go do it! They are brilliant.)
• The purpose of this activity is to get people to identify unusual things that they have in common with each other. I’ve dropped a link to a description of this activity in the show notes if you want more detail, but it basically goes like this: people pair up for a limited time (say, 3-5 minutes) and they ask each other questions to help them learn unusual things they have in common. You end up revealing things about yourself that wouldn’t necessarily come out in casual conversation – like that you climbed the Eiffel Tower carrying your newborn infant in a Baby Bjorn, or that you once ate pancakes at a campsite in the Grand Canyon after a day of whitewater rafting, or that you’ve completed pilot training – or whatever! 
• This activity would be super easy to link to your course. Just prompt students to ask each other questions that they think are related to the course content. So for a course on culture, students might ask each other questions about where they’ve traveled, which languages they speak, that time they felt like an outsider,  and so on. In a course on literacy, students might ask each other questions about getting their work published in a school newspaper, or whether they’ve taught younger siblings to read, or which alphabets they’re familiar with (or which languages they know the “alphabet song” to!).. The key is to prompt students to think broadly about their exposure to your discipline or topic, and ask each other questions that will help them link their experiences. 

There’s lots of teacherly wiggle room here, and endless ways to get your students curious about your course topic. 

How can you spark curiosity for new colleagues on Day 1?

Curiosity requires context. How many times have you heard somebody ask new folks   what questions they have? I hear this kind of useless question all the time, and I know I’ve been guilty of asking it myself – it’s kind of our default, go-to question. But think back to your first day as a new employee – did you know what to ask? Probably not, because questions come out of context and on day 1 we don’t have any! We have to have at least partial information in order to be curious about something. 

So create context by giving your new colleagues enough work to do that they can get curious about their actual job. Now, I have a bias here. You could certainly use the activities I described for class as first-day activities for your team or a larger group of colleagues. But my personal bias is that when I’m at work I want to be doing purposeful work. I love building relationships, but I like that best in the context of actually being productive. Not everybody feels this way, and the extroverts among us are probably thrilled to have time chatting with folks and getting to know them. But I’m going to stay focused on sparking curiosity in the context of work productivity. 

So choose something your new colleague is literally going to have to produce or contribute to, and get them to work on it right away. Have them work on a portion of an existing research project. Have them review a process or policy that needs to be improved. Give them something, connected to their role, that engages them in current, ongoing work. If you’re seeking context for sparking curiosity, make the context be their actual role. 

Two of the strategies I mentioned earlier are relevant here. You can organize project-based meetings, and have colleagues delegate project-related tasks. Both of these approaches get your new colleagues literally doing some work, which is a great way for relevant, useful questions to emerge about things like what systems and tools you use, how you organize your files, whether you use email, Teams, or Slack to communicate with each other, and so on. 

AND if you’re going to do this, make sure to build in time for your new colleagues  to frame their questions and observations and share them back with you. Not only will this give you valuable insight into how your new colleague thinks, organizes their work, and processes problems, it will also establish the dynamic of openness and feedback, where your team brings you their ideas and you listen. It models what should be part of your social contract with all your teams. 

Principle #4. Park on a downhill slope.

The idea behind parking on a downhill slope is to make it easy to get started and gain momentum when you return to a task. How you park on a downward slope will depend on what the task is. So for example, in writing, you might park on a downhill slope by literally ending your writing session with a note about what you think your next section should say, or what research you want to read before you write anything. That way, when you come back to your writing the next day you’ll open your document to a prompt that gets you started quickly and easily. 

In my personal worklife, I park on a downhill slope by ending each day with a review of tomorrow’s calendar. I use the Bullet Journal method to write out the next day’s Daily Log, which includes bulleted tasks of things that are on my mind that I want to tend to. Then I close my computer and put my work notebook away. In the morning, my Daily Log is already set to remind where I was the day before, and I don’t waste time trying to recall what mattered to me at 5 pm. 

Parking on a downhill slope is a powerful practice that can help prevent lost time as you try to remember where you were and what you were thinking about, every time you return to your desk or to your course materials. I strongly encourage you to teach your students and your teammates to adopt some version of this practice. 

How can students park on a downhill slope?

Since we’re talking about the first day of class, let’s explore how parking on a downhill slope can serve as a bridge between the first day and whatever comes next.

>> Link today’s activities to tomorrow’s. 

When I teach I almost always end class by looking together at what’s coming up next: what students need to do before coming back to class, and what we’ll be doing together in our next class session. You can use this on the first day by linking the ways you sparked their curiosity to what they’re going to do next.  Let’s say their first assignment is to survey five people about a course-related topic and write up their findings. You could spark their curiosity through an in-class survey that prompts class discussion, and then use that activity to set up their first survey assignment, and to prep them for the in-class discussion you’ll have at the next class meeting. 

>> Have students prep for their first out-of-class activity. 

If you’re sending them to the library for research, have them draft a few preliminary research questions. If you’re having them read an article or a chapter, have them write a hypothesis about what they think they’ll learn. (Research actually shows that hypothesizing ahead of time improves comprehension and retention, even when the hypotheses are wrong – that comes from Lang’s Small Teaching, which I link to in the show notes.) Whatever it is they’re going to do on their own, they can start to plan while you and their other classmates are in the room, and you can use each other to bounce ideas around, gain some clarity, give feedback, and so on. 

>> Ask for their “muddy questions.” 

This strategy is more for you as the instructor. Muddy questions are a great way for you to learn what your students are still struggling with. A few minutes before class is over, give your students index cards and have them write down anything they don’t understand or are wondering about. Use this feedback to start the next class session: answer their questions, clear up their confusion, review any complex course content, etc. . 

How can new colleagues park on a downhill slope?

>> Have them write out a daily log. 

Set aside time for them to look ahead to their following day and possibly even the coming week. They can make notes of who they’ll be meeting with, how they might want to prepare for those meetings, and ask you questions about what’s coming up. HINT: As you help them prepare for tomorrow, remind them that this preparation means they can go home and not think about work. Use this opportunity to reinforce your expectations that they enjoy their time away from work and encourage healthy balance and boundaries. 

>> Have them begin project lists. 

If your new colleague is going to get a series of assignments in the near future (or even got some the first day), have them start to keep a log of those projects. If you use a productivity tool (Asana, Monday.com, excel workbooks, etc.), this is a great time to introduce them to that tool. Otherwise, have them use whatever productivity tool or method they like. Giving your new colleagues this kind of thinking and planning time will help them step into the projects with a bit more clarity and focus. 

>> Have them begin a list of questions. 

We all have tons of questions when we are learning new things. Give your new colleague time to collect their thoughts and write down the things they’re wondering about. You can even set up a routine during the first few weeks where they end their day writing down and reviewing their questions, and you start the next day together by looking at their daily log and answering yesterday’s questions. 

So those are my four basic guidelines for creating an amazing first day:

Galvanize your guests.

Create meaningful engagement. 

Spark curiosity.

Park on a downhill slope. 

You don’t need to do all of them. Start small and try just one thing. See how it goes, and build on your practice over time. If you have colleagues you share teaching or leadership ideas with, share some of these strategies (or even send them to this blog!) so you can brainstorm and plan together. It’s a lot easier and way more fun to plan and then unpack this kind of work with like-minded colleagues. 

Lastly, I want to share one last vital tidbit from Priya Parker which is her 90% rule. Ninety percent of what makes a gathering successful is put in place beforehand. 

Yes, it takes a ton of work to plan an event, whether it’s the first day of class or an employee’s first day. Sometimes we feel like if we’ve got all the logistics in place we’re good. I’ve done this too – made sure my syllabus was complete, my course was up in my LMS, that I knew where the classroom was located and I’d re-read and annotated the first article I’m assigning. Or, as a supervisor I’ve gone through the long work of recruiting and hiring a new employee, getting their tech ordered and their office set up. And then I think “whew! I’m ready.” 

But that’s not really what it takes to get ready. To create the best first day ever takes another level of planning and care and creativity. And this is where Parker’s 90% rule is so valuable. Don’t think about logistics; think about purpose. Design that first day with the intensity and focus you would want someone to put into creating a purposeful first day for you. Make it special, not only because your students and your new colleagues matter to you, but because YOU matter. You’re setting the foundation for your relationships with all these new people, and you all deserve to have energetic, productive, and caring relationships. Your colleagues deserve it. Your students deserve it. And you deserve it.

And it’s a process, right? I’ve created awesome first days, and pretty average first days, and honestly some truly mediocre first days too. But I’m standing right beside you, learning how to do this better and looking for opportunities to put these ideas into practice.

For more ideas and background about some of the ideas I’ve shared, check out the extra readings and resources linked below, including a link to some of the podcasts where Priya Parker has been interviewed.

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Extra Reading & Resources (not affiliate marketing – just sharing information!)

James M. Lang. “How to Teach a Good First Day of Class,” Published in The Chronicle of Higher Education. https://www.chronicle.com/article/how-to-teach-a-good-first-day-of-class/?cid2=gen_login_refresh&cid=gen_sign_in

James Lang, Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning. https://www.jamesmlang.com/books

Vanderbilt University’s Center for Teaching: “First Day of Class.” https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/first-day-of-class/

Cornell University’s Center for Teaching Innovation: “The First Day of Class.” See especially the section on Considerations for the First Day of Class. https://teaching.cornell.edu/teaching-resources/designing-your-course/first-day-class

Carnegie Mellon University’s Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence and Educational Innovation. https://www.cmu.edu/teaching/designteach/teach/firstday.html

NYU Arts & Science FAS Office of Educational Technology: “A Brief Take on James Lang’s Small Teaching”: https://wp.nyu.edu/fas-edtech/2019/01/a-brief-take-on-james-langs-small-teaching/

Uncommon Commonalities. https://transformativetoolkit.org/activity/uncommon-commonalities

Phone Photo Phun. https://docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/1TK1Nxsy6Qy40mo-3W1HlYHrhlLfAuozuLX9V4kGiwY8/mobilebasic

Have a long commute? Spend your time with these folks:

Designing Culture First Gatherings, with Priya Parker. Culture First podcast, hosted by Damon Klotz.

A Meeting Makeover, with Priya Parker. Dare to Lead podcast, hosted by Brene Brown.

Remaking Gathering: Entering the Mess, Crossing Thresholds. On Being, hosted by Krista Tippett.