The night before the first day of Intro to Psychology I thought that everything would run smoothly. I thought that I would arrive to class early, I would know exactly what to do, and no problems would arise. However that is not how my first day of Intro to Psychology went. Instead of everything go smoothly my lab class got out at 10:50, I had to rush to change into dressier clothes and I almost arrived late. Fortunately Dr.Gurung had already explained to the Teacher’s Assistants what to expect during the first day of class. This planning helped a lot to calm my nerves.
Throughout the first day of class I did notice that Dr.Gurung did things in a certain order and I started to speculate as to why that would be. First thing I noticed is that he did not hand out the syllabus right away. I think that is because he wanted students to pay attention to what he was saying and not be looking over their syllabus. Also, usually on the first day of class after professors handout the syllabus and go over it they tell the students they can leave. Many students may have felt that they could leave after they got their syllabus. I also noticed that he told the class a little about himself and the teacher’s assistants first before he asked the class to tell him about themselves. This is probably because some people feel more comfortable when a professor or another student shares information about themselves first. One other thing that I noticed is that he had the students make name cards so that he could call and learn their names. This is a great idea because in a class as large as Intro to Psych many students may feel that participating and/or even coming to class will not matter since they are just another face in the crowd. However since Dr.Gurung is taking the time to learn every one’s name and call them by it this may make the students more likely to participate and come to class.
Well these were my observations of the first day of class. Before the weekend is over I will be blogging about how I feel the second day of class went. See everyone on Tuesday!