Contributor: Alice Cassidy, In View Educational Development, alicecas@telus.net
Ingredients: Nothing, unless you plan to include an image or an object
Method: Consider this as the first thing you say on the first day of your course, or if leading a one-off seminar or workshop, how you start it. How might you create an enthusiasm statement? Consider your answer to one of the following questions:
How did you first get interested in this topic?
Who are the leading scholars?
What are some burning questions?
What great thing will students or participants leave with?
How can you show something you are very excited about, in the hopes that it will ‘rub off’ on your students or participants? Break from the ordinary. The start of a course or seminar is an ideal time to dive right into the subject!
Special Notes: As an example, when teaching a course about wildlife and its habitat, I started the course by showing students the slide below. I wanted to make them curious, to help them develop good field observations skills, and to give them an idea of what to expect.
Acknowledgements: I first presented on this in a Magna online seminar in 2012 http://www.magnapubs.com/online/mentor/how-can-i-capture-students-interest-in-the-first-5-minutes-3159-1.html I know of no earlier reference.
References: See https://cassidyinview.wordpress.com/in-class-activities/first-day-of-class/enthusiasm-statement/ where I include some examples shared by people who have taken my workshops.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
