From the Archives: the First Week of the Academic Term

The ProfHacker archives are full of useful ideas, tools, and advice relevant to the first week of a new academic semester or quarter. In addition to the posts highlighted below, you may want to check out some previous From the Archives posts on New Semester, New Year, Creating Syllabi, and Grading.

Teaching: the first week

• Brian’s So Now You’re A Teacher is aimed at new instructors, but contains useful reminders for anyone heading back into the classroom.
• The ProfHacker team assembled a list of 11 Fast Syllabus Hacks I offered some tips for Learning Student Names and later wrote about the memory palace method for memorizing anything.
• Don’t forget to breathe! (And you can always have your students breathe with you for 60 seconds, too.)

Get ready for the semester

• Heather offers her Checklist for the Semester.
• Anastasia makes three key Teaching Resolutions for a New Semester.
• Be prepared In Case of Emergency. (See also Jason on Managing Medical Emergencies in Class and Erin on Medical Emergencies in the Classroom.)

Remember What the First Week Is Actually Like

• I offered Five Reasons the First Week is Not Like the Rest.
• Jason reminds us about the difference between instructor expectations and reality.
• Heather wrote about Dealing with Beginning of Semester Absences.
• Because the first week of the fall term can be especially charged, I discussed Five Emotions of the First Week .

How About You?

What are your best tips for the first week of the academic term? Please share in the comments!

[Creative Commons licensed image by flickr user Christopher Sessums]