1st Day: Setting the Tone

WOW! In my four years of college classes, I’ve never seen a 1st day so crazy packed full of energy.  Before lecture even started, Gurung’s appearance and presence made it clear to the students that he wanted to be there and more importantly, that this class, and the students in it, are important to him.  Not to mention the very fitting music of REM’s “Begin the Begin.”  I think that music adds  a  different dynamic to the class…it gives students an impression that this is not their every day ho-hum 1st day.  I think music generally takes the edge off, and having music play before lecture gives students a chance to regroup before class begins. 

An outline was put up to show students where the lecture was headed.  This can help them create a mental map of how ideas, theories, research and people are going to connect. 

On a typical first day, many prof’s will go through a 5 minute schpeel on what they don’t like in class.  As a student, I appreciate the boundaries that need to be set and like to know about the professor’s expectations.  However, Gurung brought it to a different level- he connected his own preferences, such as the “no laptops” rule, to relevant research.  This shows students that it’s not just a quirky preference or him just being mean, but his preference is connected to research-proven evidence that links laptop use to lower grades.  I think this gives the students the impression that everything is done on purpose…nothing is a coincidence.

TA intros- I’m happy we were able to introduce ourselves.  Personally, my little blurb was a bit awkward.  I was nervous.  In the past semester, I wasn’t nervous at all…I really didn’t think the 100 extra bodies this time around would make a difference.  But it did.  I said “psychology and stuff like that” AAH! STUFF? haha oh well- it’s a learning process.  I like how we all bring something different to the table, all with different backgrounds and personalities. 

In addition to the preference speech prof’s give to students, they usually like to talk about their family or something personal.  Gurung did this as well, but he wanted it to have its place- and purpose- within an intro psych lecture. The baby cuteness setpeice was one way he could do that.  It was a very cool bit and I bet much of the class will remember it for a long time to come.   It gave them a chance to see how fun and interesting psychology can really be.  In the TA mtg, it was mentioned that some students might take that as being a little too wacky or over the top.  But I think it showed students that so many things can be studied in psychology and how there is research that relates to almost every aspect of one’s life- even saying “Aww” to a baby picture.  Personally, I always liked to hear a little about the prof’s life so I can set them in a greater context…that they are a person and have their own life.  I seem to respect and am more interested in them that way.

Brangelina peice– showed class a glimpse of how we’ll be talking about relationships and past and future behavior…I thought it was cool to see a before/after shot of Brad, but with different wives.  The use of celebrities shows that Gurung is up-to-date, and pays attention to the pop culture, even if it is celebrity media, in which we are living– which is something that some prof’s seem to have lost long ago.  It’s important to be able to connect real-world circumstances to things students are learning in class…I’m sure it captures the class’s attention, too!

The Microsoft bit was very funny, and made the class laugh when the monkey appeared on the screen.  One thing I thought that could be done differently was to explicitly say that the letters were in a different order, but our mind plays a trick on us and processes it as Microsoft anyway.  I hope we can go back to that, once we do talk about cognition, so that students can better see the connection.

Conformity peice- this was probably the biggest take-home message I probably would have received as a student.  To actually witness my own peers conform to something as little as line judging, making the same mistake as shown in research.  Many would probably think that they would’ve gone against everybody else…but this proved otherwise.  At first I was like, wow! How did that work so well? But then Gurung admitted to telling the first couple people to say the wrong answer.  I kind of felt bad for the people who weren’t told to say the wrong answer and did anyway, but I didn’t know who said what and which specific students were told not to.  But even if this was the case, Gurung tried to debrief by saying, hey, many people conform and we’re used to being tricked (especially after JUST seeing the camera scenario).  But the fact that Gurung prepared the students ahead of time was very smooth.  That in and of itself was a surprise to me! Very nice… Also, when we watched the videos, Gurung gave students a chance to make hypotheses about what a different person than the first would do in the same situation, which is a very important skill.

Overall, I think my involvement was good…for the first day.  Because it was the first day, I wanted to make sure I had everything in order and all the TAs were on the same page. Most of my interaction with students was telling them where there was an open spot, not to sit on the back 6 chairs, make a name sign, etc.  In the future I plan to use this time to talk and relate with the students– something thats important to me as well as my role as a TA.