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FIRST IMPRESSIONS

Make the Most of the First Five Minutes of Any Class

Remember the old Head & Shoulders shampoo tagline? You never get a second chance to make a first impression.

As teachers, we actually get a chance to make a first impression every single day—often several times per day with each class we teach. With students who are accustomed to the rapidly paced sound bites and topic switches of a new media world, if we don’t grab their attention quickly, we know that they often tune us out and the rest of the class period is usually shot. That’s why the first five minutes of any class are crucial: they are an opportunity to connect with students, set the tone, convey expectations, and state in clear terms that day’s goals. In this chapter, I establish how students are your customers and then detail five strategies you can use to make the most of your first impression every day and with every class.

Students Are Your Customers

Before I was a teacher, I managed a seafood restaurant on the California coast. There, I learned many valuable lessons about the impact of first impressions, making connections, and retaining customers. Although our students can’t easily walk out and choose another place to go to school if we don’t quickly meet their needs for connection, engagement, quality, and comfort (as restaurant customers are apt to do), our students can certainly choose to not participate if those needs are not met—and then everyone loses.

As educator Lee Watanabe-Crockett (2019) writes, “In order to learn something, it must stimulate your curiosity—in other words, interest comes before learning does” (p. 21). The research of Mary Helen Immordino-Yang corroborates this in her studies on brain function: “When students are emotionally engaged, we see activations all around the cortex, in regions involved in cognition, memory and meaning-making, and even all the way down into the brain stem” (as cited in Lahey, 2016).

Strategies for Success

If you lose your students’ attention and focus within the first five minutes of class, it’s pretty tough to restore it once you dive into the deeper end of the day’s learning. Here are five critical steps—from this former restaurant manager turned teacher—toward making the first five minutes of your class both engaging and effective.

Connect Quickly

Have you ever walked into a restaurant and stood inside the door with a blank look on your face, waiting for the host or hostess to come and greet you—but the staff just whizzed around you, not acknowledging that you were there? Think about the stark contrast of this to the restaurant where someone greets you promptly at the door, warmly welcomes you, and has water and bread at the table as you’re getting comfortable.

Perhaps warm bread isn’t a part of our pedagogy, but good customer service should be. When we greet and acknowledge our students as they enter our classrooms, we make them feel welcome, relaxed, and happier to be there. Obviously, there are times when greeting each student by name is not possible; however, eye contact, an affirming nod, or a thumbs-up is often enough connection for our students to feel noticed and welcome. This means they are also more open to learning. When looking more deeply into this, R. Allan Allday and Kerri Pakurar (2017) find that when the teacher greets “problem” students at the door, student engagement increases from 45 percent to 72 percent at the start of class. In addition, and as I write in chapter 3 (page 24, Greet Your Students at the Door), it firmly sets the tone that, as the teacher, you are well-prepared, in charge, and happy to be there.

Lose the Lull

Continuing with the restaurant analogy, when the tables are full and patrons must wait, what do smart restaurants have them do? Preview the menu. Reading the menu, seeing the daily specials, planning a drink order, and so on get us thinking about the foods ahead of us. This keeps us from getting bored and irritated, gives us time to process and ask questions, and eliminates confusion. By the time we are seated at a table, we are usually hungry, decisive, and ready to order.

As our students sit down at their desks, they should never have to ask, “Now what?” On the very first day of school, I train my students that each day they should look for a warm-up activity on display when they enter my classroom. They also know I expect them to be working on it before the bell rings. Of course, if they need to take a breath or take care of something before that bell, I make sure to be understanding of that, but they need to be working when that bell rings. As Harry Wong and Rosemary Wong (2014) write in The Classroom Management Book:

Every minute of the school day needs to be used effectively. Students are more productive if they have an assignment to work on as soon as they step into the classroom each day. This sets the tone for the class period of the day—the students are there to work and learn. (p. 71)

Engaging students in a warm-up task also ensures they have already dealt with preparatory routines such as sharpening their pencils or turning on their devices. These kinds of things save you significant time during the first five minutes of class, keep students engaged, and eliminate the need to constantly remind them what they should be doing.

Grab Their Attention

Which do you prefer: a waiter who mumbles a monotone “Hello” and then rambles off the specials, bored and looking at the ceiling, or one who enthusiastically explains each dish in juicy detail, engages you in conversation, and throws in a joke or compliment?

Students, especially our struggling students (see part 2, page 59), need something more than just being lectured to. Consider engaging their minds and bodies with an opening clap. Say, “Welcome, everyone, let’s start out with a two-clap on the count of three. Ready? One, two, three …” Or, perhaps tell a funny story that happened to you on the way home from school the previous day or over the weekend. You don’t have to be a stand-up comedian with an opening monologue, but a quick joke, a short video clip, or an interesting news story that relates to what you are going to teach can all be excellent attention grabbers.

Provide Purpose

Why do you choose to eat in any particular establishment? Do you need filling comfort food; a light, quick meal; or something spicy and exotic? You always have a reason or purpose for what you choose to eat. Although students can’t necessarily choose what they are going to learn on a given day, they can certainly understand whether what they are learning has a purpose or not.

Here are three steps for clearly communicating a lesson’s purpose to students.

1. Write it: Have your objective clearly posted in the same, accessible place each day. Make sure it is in student-friendly language! For example:

• Objective—The students will be able to calculate measures of central tendency. (Not student friendly)

• Objective—We will calculate mean, median, and mode, and be able to describe each to a friend. (Student friendly)

2. Say it: In a straightforward manner, say to your students, “By the end of class today, you will be able to calculate mean, median, and mode. You’ll know you can do this because you will be able to tell a friend how to do it, as well as do it by yourself when I’m not in the room.” (This is most effective if you say this while pointing to it in the written form as in step 1.)

Here is where you can also connect the lesson to a larger purpose in their lives by saying something like, “Believe it or not, you will use these skills when you are doing real things in your life, such as shopping for houses and negotiating salaries for a job.”

3. Ask for it back: Make the students tell you why they’re there. After completing steps 1 and 2, ask a student aloud: “Hey, Brandon, please tell us why we’re here today.”

When you take these three steps, you help your students see the purpose in what they will do at the beginning of each class. Establishing this connection is part of your job—your students need to know why they’re there. As assessment experts Rick Stiggins, Judith A. Arter, Jan Chappuis, and Steve Chappuis (2004) state, “Explaining the intended learning in student-friendly terms at the outset of a lesson is the critical first step in helping students know where they are going” (p. 58).

Cut the Hypocrisy

Would you trust a server at a health-food restaurant who looks run down and out of shape? Or one at a five-star restaurant who dresses sloppily and speaks incorrectly? This isn’t about cosmetic appearances. It’s deeper. It’s about authenticity. We can’t truly sell what we don’t truly embody.

Often, I see teachers chatting in the halls, texting, or running to or from the copy machine as the final bell rings. Admittedly, I’ve done all of these things as well. However, when we do, we severely weaken the power we have to insist that our students get to class on time, be ready to learn, and stay attuned to what we’re asking them to do.

The key to our students being well-prepared, curious, and passionate human beings begins with us, as teachers, also displaying those characteristics. For me, the following paraphrased, oft-told story (Mehta, n.d.) perfectly illustrates our role as teachers:

A troubled mother took her daughter to see Mohandas Gandhi, who was world-renowned for his great spiritual discipline. It seems the young girl had become addicted to eating sweets, and her mother wanted Gandhi to speak to her about this harmful habit and convince her to drop it. Upon hearing this request, Gandhi paused in silence and then told the mother, “Bring the girl back to me in three weeks and I will speak to her then.”

Just as she was instructed, the mother returned with her daughter, and Gandhi, as he had promised, spoke to the girl about the detrimental effects of eating too many sweets. He counseled her to give them up.

The mother gratefully thanked Gandhi, but was perplexed. “Why,” she asked him, “did you not speak to my daughter when we first came to you?”

“My good woman,” Gandhi replied, “three weeks ago, I myself was still addicted to sweets!”

Summary

The next time you step into your classroom, notice what you do in the first five minutes of your class to make an impression, think about how your choices and routines set the tone for student success or failure, and consider how some simple changes could reap huge benefits for you and your students. By serving your students some appetizing learning from the moment they walk in the door, you encourage them to be focused throughout the session!

Reflection Questions

Now that you have completed the chapter, consider and reflect on the following questions.

1. Why is it important to see your students as your customers? How does this outlook help you better serve your students’ interests?

2. What are the first three things your students should do immediately upon entering your classroom? Write them down, and then ask students to do the same thing. Are your answers the same?

3. What are some ways that you can grab your students’ attention at the beginning of a lesson?

4. What’s something that you do as a teacher but ask your students not to do? (Be honest with yourself!)

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