You’re teaching a lower-level philosophy course. Many of your students may be encountering philosophy for the first time ever on the first day of your course. 
Besides going over the syllabus and course logistics—which should never be the first thing you do—what else do you do on day 1 to (as one reader put it) “get the philosophical juices flowing”?
We had a post about this 8 years ago, and there were some good ideas bandied about then, but I’m sure that by now more people have some more interesting approaches to the first day of philosophy course. Let’s hear them.
I do two things:
I think this has a number of advantages. We’re doing philosophy right away. I’m able to discuss the syllabus both as a course document and as a backdoor example of philosophy on day two (our first unit is on value theory and we discuss the syllabus in terms of the explicit and implicit values expressed by the syllabus). We’re able to discuss important concepts like truth, ambiguity, and the relationship between fact and opinion. I’m able to provide a definition of truth that students understand in a context that doesn’t make students feel under threat (McBrayer argues that the concept of truth learned in K12 is contradictory and problematic in ways that students get). The reading itself is quite accessible, written for a popular audience. And because we use collaborative annotation software, we’re able to take a couple minutes to practice using the software with me in the room, able to troubleshoot.
Specifically on getting the juices flowing, some ideas I’ve deployed on day 1 that seemed effective:
On the syllabus, I generally do not provide an overview of course mechanics, as nothing kills an intellectual buzz like working through a document largely about administering the course. Nor do I take student questions regarding the syllabus. The latter is problematic because (a) some students, especially first gen, may find the prospect of asking such a question embarrassing, (b) some students will just have enrolled and are only getting familiar with the syllabus then and there, and (c) some students may have questions that are best posed in confidence (e.g., regarding disability accommodations). Better to encourage students to ask these questions by email or in some anonymous way. I do, however, talk students through the course content in the hope that this might build excitement for what’s to come and to illustrate what unites the various texts, questions, etc., in the course.
Let me also recommend two discussions from the now defunct In Socrates Wake blog: one, two
as well as the resources on first day of class at TeachPhilosophy101.
This sounds great! Quick side question: I’ve never heard of mentimeter, can you say a little about how it compares to, e.g., iclicker? Do students need to sign up for it?
Students don’t need to sign up. Just type a code in the website, and they can join. (Just like kahoot)
This will probably sound cliche, but I just do Trolleyology right off the bat, whether it’s an introductory ethics class or a broader “PHIL 101.” (And like Jake Wright, I assign students to read the syllabus for Day 2, which is when I can answer any questions they still have re: course mechanics etc.)
Seems to work pretty well. And if I may be permitted a shameless plug, I describe the approach more fully here.
I love this, and here’s how I respond when I get the inevitable objection that thought experiments are so fake:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/patricklin/2017/04/03/robot-cars-and-fake-ethical-dilemmas/
I haven’t taught Intro in a really, really long time, but I usually take two major ideas from the course, get students to free-write on each, then we get a bunch of different possible definitions on the board and work together to develop the ones that seem most promising to them. So for this semester, we’ll do “What is freedom?” and “What is equality?” for my Social and Political Philosophy Course, and “What is race?” and “What is gender?” for my Philosophy of Race and Gender course.
Like others, I also strongly prefer doing syllabus on Day 2, especially if the class meeting is only 50 minutes.
I think of the first class as a sample for the rest of the semester, so it should give an idea both of the sort of content we’d cover, and the way we’re going about it. So, for example, for a bioethics course, we might do a bioethics bowl case, or for a classical Chinese philosophy course, we might do a close reading of a primary text.
I like to throw new students into the philosophical pool by jumping right away into a debate that showcases some of our methods and moves. This is meant to be a “hook”, getting them interested and excited about the class.
I use JJ Thomson’s Famous Violinist as my scenario. After some objections and counter-objections, they eventually realize the hypothetical is about abortion. You can almost see the light bulb turn on in their heads that philosophy can be relevant to real-world issues.
This doubles as an opportunity to lay down ground rules about respectful debates, even if everyone has strong opinions about a subject.
First impressions matter, especially to any undecided majors and brand-new freshmen, and especially if they’ve heard scary things about philosophy. So, a bit of fun seems like a good way to start.
I think what one should do on the first day depends a lot on the type of course being taught, the enrollment size, and what students need to know on Day 1 to get off to a good start in your course. For instance, since all of my course materials (readings, visual aids, assignment submissions, etc.) are on the course site on the university’s learning platform, I spend considerable time on the first day showing the students how to navigate it and how I have organized the material. If the students don’t know how to access the content, they will feel lost right away. Some students will already know how to do this, but especially in large lecture courses, a significant number of students could be freshman or transfer students and not be familiar with our institution’s learning platform.
I am also more prone to cover important course topics on Day 1 in smaller courses than the large lecture courses with 100+ students. In large lecture courses, the roster is likely to shift 10% or more after the first meeting via adds and drops, so covering vital course content on Day 1 can disadvantage students who add the course late. In a smaller class, meeting with 1-2 students who happened to add late and getting them up to speed may not be a big deal, but but doing so with a dozen students might be a bigger hassle.
I do cover the “highlights” of the syllabus — mostly focusing on how the course is topically organized, what the major assessments are, and how these assessments connect to the course’s learning objectives. I want the students to have a sense of the content and skills I want them to learn over the term from the outset. I reinforce student’s knowledge of the syllabus through an online quiz at the end of the week. I have found that doing both of these things cuts down on syllabus-related inquiries dramatically.
Agreed with Trevor- depends heavily on the class size. But if it’s small enough, I do intros, part of which involves them saying why they’re taking the class. I’ll take advantage of an interesting answer to lead them into a discussion of “What’s the point of taking a college class in general?” which leads us to “What is the purpose of education?”
Towards the end I’ll discuss some of my goals (and theirs) for the course and some mechanics while referencing how I see it all fitting into the previous discussion. I think this helps to show how philosophical questions arise naturally in ordinary life (a theme in my intro class) and how they’re valuable for some activities (like designing a class), while letting me go over some of the syllabus info. If I’m lucky, it might even lend some of the decisions made on the syllabus some credibility.
I put a chair on the table at the front of the room and ask them what it is. I then ask them why they say it’s a chair. Depending on responses, the conversation might develop along epistemological lines: how do you know there is a chair there? Can you be certain? Or along linguistic lines: what’s your implicit definition of a chair? Can we come up with necessary and sufficient conditions for chairness?
Either way, we’re doing philosophy on day one and they’re having fun doing it. Syllabus, course policies, navigating the LMS…all of that can wait until after I’ve set the hook.
I do a “how to read philosophy” exercise the rough outline of which can be gleaned from this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNTS_K1PJkw
Daniel, your video is excellent. I hope to include it in an intro class I hope to teach.
I divide students into small groups and give each a unique thought experiment related to the themes of the class. These are drawn from The Pig That Wants to be Eaten. I tell students to exchange contact info if they want so they know someone from class and can get notes if they miss. They read the thought experiment together and discuss. Then after about 20 minutes we come back together as a class and one person from the group has to explain the puzzles to others and what their group thought about it. I moderate and largely complicate their views without putting my thumb on the scale. The goal is for them to see what philosophy does best– take something they probably take for granted and then turn it upside down.
It’s ice breakery without being an ice breaker. And they do philosophy immediately. They’re reading, thinking, communicating, responding to each other, etc. It allows them to be experts by teaching their material to others. And because the thought experiments are chosen thematically, they can see connections immediately between different ideas. I can also say, we’ll come back to this idea later.