The first day of class is your opportunity to present your vision of the class to prospective students. It is helpful if you can introduce yourself as a scholar and educator and provide insight into how you will teach the class and what you will expect them to contribute to the learning process.

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Consider that several of your students may be “shopping” for a schedule the first week of classes. They may be looking for a class that will fill a particular time slot, include a particular learning environment (i.e. lab-based or lecture style), or a class with a certain workload to balance the demands of their other courses and extra-curricular responsibilities. Thus, students will appreciate a clear roadmap of what you will require of them over the course of the semester. You may also want to model, as specifically as possible, the classroom environment you intend to foster during the class. For example, if they will spend a good deal of time doing group work over the course of the semester, you may want to break them into groups the first day.

Welcoming:
How to Create an Inviting Classroom

“Professors who established a special trust with their students often displayed the kind of openness in which they might, from time to time, talk about their intellectual journey, its ambitions, triumphs, frustrations, and failures, and encourage students to be similarly reflective and candid.”

–From the chapter “How Do They Treat Their Students” in Ken Bain’s What the Best College Teachers Do (Harvard Press, 2004), available in the CFT Library

Introduce Yourself

The point of an introduction is to establish yourself as a unique individual sharing the classroom with other unique individuals. Other than providing your name and the name of the course you’re teaching, here is some information you may consider sharing:

• Personal biography: your place of birth, family history, educational history, hobbies, sport and recreational interests, how long you have been at the university, and what your plans are for the future.

• Educational biography: how you came to specialize in your chosen field, a description of your specific area of expertise, your current projects, and your future plans.

• Teaching biography: how long have you taught, how many subjects/classes have you taught, what level of class you normally teach, what you enjoy about being in the classroom, what do you learn from your students, and what you expect to teach in the future.

• In making your decision about what information to share, consider how much you want them to know and how much you want to reveal about yourself.

Allow the Students to Introduce Themselves

This is your opportunity to focus on students as unique and diverse individuals. Consider how introductions can lead into a productive and welcoming classroom environment. Instead of just asking general questions concerning their name, major, and years at Vanderbilt, ask them questions that are pertinent to the subject and the atmosphere you want to build through the semester. Here are some examples:

• In a geography or history class, you may want to ask students to introduce themselves and explain where they are from. You could mark these places on a map of the world as they talk.

• In a math class, you may want to ask the students to introduce themselves and state one way mathematics enriches their lives every day.

• You may also want to have the students break into pairs, exchange information, and introduce one another to the class.

This may also be a good time to give your students an exercise that enables teachers to assess the state of their students’ previous or current learning. Examples of these Classroom Assessment Techniques (CATs) can be found on our Web site, but include the following.

• The Background Knowledge Probe is a short, simple questionnaire given to students at the start of a course, or before the introduction of a new unit, lesson or topic. It is designed to uncover students’ pre-conceptions about the area of study.

Discuss and Evaluate the Room Environment Together

As your students are introducing themselves and you are talking to them, ask your students to comment on the acoustics and remain conscious of how well you can hear and see each of them. Consider, with their input or alone, how you would change and optimize the seating arrangement. At the end of the introductions, ask them to move to optimize communication and make note of unexpected needs for a microphone, lighting changes, seating arrangements or other environmental controls.

Truth in Advertising:
Course Expectations and Requirements

“What happens between you and your students in your classroom or lecture hall depends largely on what you want to happen. How you treat each other and how you and your students feel about being in that place with each other is modeled and influenced by you.”

–From the chapter “Classroom Contracts–Roles, Rules, and Expectations” in David W. Champagne’s The Intelligent Professor’s Guide to Teaching (Roc Edtech, 1995), available in the CFT Library

• Course overview: Provide a map of where the class will start and end, and what you expect them to understand at the end of the semester. See the Course Design page for resources on creating and summarizing course goals.

• Departmental Requirements/Expectations: If your department sets standards and requirements, you may want to establish that you are required to work within those parameters. Vanderbilt Teaching Assistants may want to refer to Questions TAs Might Ask Their Supervisors for assistance understanding this information. This may be the best time to discuss Vanderbilt University’s Honor System.

• Presentation of material: Tell your students how you will provide them with the materials they need to be successful in class. Do you post Web-based materials on Brightspace, or rely on electronic course reserves through the Library? Will your students have to schedule evenings to watch films or attend performances? Will you lecture and expect them to take notes on your presentations?

• Expectations for class time: How will the student feel confident and competent in your classroom? Is the class discussion-based? Do you follow your syllabus or do you improvise? Do they need to bring their books every day? Tell them what they can expect and how can they interact within those expectations to thrive in your classroom.

• Expectations outside of class: Provide them with an idea of what they will need to prepare for the course outside of class. Is their preparation primarily reading and writing individually, or will they be working in groups? Will they need to turn in assignments electronically outside of class hours? Give them enough information so they will be able to plan their schedules accordingly.

• Instructor responsibilities:
  • Establish what you will provide for your students to be successful in your class. This may include in-class material, study guides, meaningful and prompt feedback on assignments, facilitation of discussion, attention to students with special needs, and a positive and welcoming classroom environment.
  • Assert your boundaries: Let your students know how to contact you and when. For example communicate or provide your office hours, office phone number, availability for instant messaging, email, and when you do not respond (evenings, weekends, and traveling for example). If you are traveling during the semester, you may want to explain the dates that you will not be available.
  • You may also want to alert your students to the events, habits, or situations that detract from your ability to fulfill your responsibility. For example, if late assignments, lack of participation, or sleeping during your lectures distracts you from timely and persuasive teaching, explain why you cannot tolerate these events and how you handle them when they occur.

• Student responsibilities: If attendance is required, participation is mandatory, or you want them to read the assignment before class, explain to your students that this is expected of them throughout the semester. Explain policies on absences, make-ups, emergencies, and accommodating special needs. You may also remind them that they are responsible for their success and communicating with you when they have need assistance or have other concerns. The university launched new Title IX and Student Discrimination, Student Access Services and Equal Employment Opportunity offices to serve students, faculty and staff Jan 15, 2018.

• Assessment: How will you assign the course grade at the end of the semester? How many assignments will you grade? Do you have grading policies and/or rubrics or criteria for grading?

• Cooperation/communication/resources: Finally, you may want to spend a few minutes discussing university, department, library, or other resources for students to use in through the course of the semester.

“By giving students an interesting and inviting introduction, I was able to reduce anxiety about the course and help students view the class as a collaborative learning process. Every field has its own exciting research or striking examples, and it is a good idea to present a few of these up front. The teaching challenge is to find special ideas within your own field. Your class will thank you.”

–From “How to Start Teaching a Tough Course: Dry Organization Versus Excitement on the First Day of Class” by Kevin L. Bennett, in College Teaching, 52(3), 2004

Additional Resources:

• Angelo, T. A., and Cross, K. P. Classroom Assessment Techniques: A Handbook for College Teachers. (2nd ed.) San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1993.
• Erickson, B. L., and Strommer, D. W. Teaching College Freshmen. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1991.
• “The First Day of Class: Advice and Ideas.” Teaching Professor, 1989, 3(7), 1-2.
• Johnson, G. R. Taking Teaching Seriously. College Station: Center for Teaching Excellence, Texas A & M University, 1988.
• McKeachie, W. J. Teaching Tips. (8th ed.) Lexington, Mass.: Heath, 1986.
• Scholl-Buckwald, S. “The First Meeting of Class.” In J. Katz (ed.), Teaching as Though Students Mattered. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, no. 21. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1985.
• Serey, T. “Meet Your Professor.” Teaching Professor, 1989, 3(l), 2.
• Weisz, E. “Energizing the Classroom.” College Teaching, 1990, 38(2), 74-76.
• Wolcowitz, J. “The First Day of Class.” In M. M. Gullette (ed.), The Art and Craft of Teaching. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1984.

Other Vanderbilt Center for Teaching Resources:

Summary Checklist

• Introduce yourself
• Allow the Students to introduce themselves
• Discuss and evaluate the room environment together
• Course overview
• Departmental requirements/expectations
• Presentation of material
• Expectations for class time
• Expectations outside of class
• Instructor responsibilities
• Student responsibilities
• Assessment
• Cooperation/communication/resources

This teaching guide is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

The Lord's Day - Revelation 1:10 ... The First Day!

The Lord's day is whatever day Christians worship on. Sabbatarians maintain that the 'Lord's day' is the Sabbath. They maintain that Jesus said he was Lord of the Sabbath. However this is a very weak argument and the actual evidence for the first day (Sunday) is MUCH stronger!

A. The weight of evidence is stronger for The Lord's Day being the first day (Sunday)

1. Jesus rose on the first day (Sunday) Jesus was crucified on Friday and rose on the first day.
2. The Holy Spirit was given on Pentecost Acts 2:1, which always falls on a Sunday
3. Early Christians from 30-300AD referred to Sunday as the Lord's day BECAUSE it was the day Jesus rose from the dead.
4. The only example of the Lord's supper being practiced by Christians is in Acts 20:7, on Sunday. If this is not the Lord's supper, as Sabbatarians cannot grant, then there is no example in the Bible of Christians communing.
5. 'Sunday' is only used in languages such as German, Dutch, and English, whereas Latin-based languages, such as Spanish, Italian, and French use a derivative of the Latin word 'Dominica,' literally 'Lord's Day.' So the very notion of the first day of the week having something to do with the sun depends on the language you speak. (Mario Derksen)

B. Ps 118:22-26 prophecies the first day of the week!

First Daypart 1teach To Be Happy Hour

'The stone which the builders rejected Has become the chief corner stone. This is the Lord's doing; It is marvelous in our eyes. This is the day which the Lord has made; Let us rejoice and be glad in it. O Lord, do save, we beseech You; O Lord, we beseech You, do send prosperity! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord; We have blessed you from the house of the Lord. ' (Psalm 118:22-26)

First Daypart 1teach To Be Happy Birthday Wishes

1. It is obvious that resurrection day, is the day the Lord Made.
2. Resurrection day is Sunday.
3. Sunday is the day the Lord made!
4. The first day (Sunday) is the Lord's Day!

Ps 118:22-26	Sabbath	1st Day (Sunday)
A new day the Lord has made	Old from time of Moses.	A new day!
Rejected Stone becomes chief corner stone	Still rejected	Risen on 1st day to become corner stone!
Marvelous; rejoice and be glad	A day of sorrow Jn 20:11	A day of joy and rejoicing Luke 24:41; Mt 28:8 Jn 20:20

C. A powerful parallel exists between the Passover eaten on 'Jehovah's Day' and the Lord's Supper being eaten on the first day (The Lord's Day):

Jehovah's Passover was taken on Jehovah's Day

Exodus 12:11 And thus you shall eat it: with a belt on your waist, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. So you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord's [Jehovah's] Passover Exodus 20:10 but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord [Jehovah's] your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates.

The Lord's Supper is taken on the Lord's Day

Acts 20:6-7 But we sailed away from Philippi after the Days of Unleavened Bread, and in five days joined them at Troas, where we stayed seven days. Now on the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul, ready to depart the next day, spoke to them and continued his message until midnight.

First Daypart 1teach To Be Happy Wishes

D. The Lord's things:

1. The Lord's body: 1 Cor 11:27-29
2. The Lord's blood: 1 Cor 11:27
3. The Lord's table: 1 Cor 10:21
4. The Lord's supper: 1 Cor 10:21
5. The Lord's disciples: Acts 9:1
6. The Lord's death: 1 Cor 10:21
7. The Lord's house: 1 Tim 3:15
8. The Lord's day: Rev 1:10

C. John's Pattern:

1. In all the 5 books that John wrote, he always called the Sabbath 'the Sabbath'
2. If Rev 1:10 was the Sabbath, John would have said, 'I was in the Spirit on the Sabbath'.
3. This proves it was not the Sabbath but the First day of the week: Sunday.

D. Here are a few quotes from our history archive that prove early Christians unanimously called the first day of the week, the 'Lord's Day'! (click here for more quotes)

• 107AD IGNATIUS: let every friend of Christ keep the Lord's Day as a festival, the resurrection-day, the queen and chief of all the days of the week. (Ignatius, Epistle to the Magnesians, chp 9. Ante-Nicene Fathers , vol. 1, pg. 62-63.)
• 130AD BARNABAS: Moreover God says to the Jews, 'Your new moons and Sabbaths 1 cannot endure.' You see how he says, 'The present Sabbaths are not acceptable to me, but the Sabbath which I have made in which, when I have rested [heaven: Heb 4] from all things, I will make the beginning of the eighth day which is the beginning of another world.' Wherefore we Christians keep the eighth day for joy, on which also Jesus arose from the dead and when he appeared ascended into heaven. (15:8f, The Epistle of Barnabas, 100 AD, Ante-Nicene Fathers , vol. 1, pg. 147)
• 150AD JUSTIN: But Sunday is the day on which we hold our common assembly, because it is the first day of the week and Jesus our saviour on the same day rose from the dead. (First apology of Justin, Ch 68)
• 150AD JUSTIN: And on the day called Sunday there is a gathering together in the same place of all who live in a city or a rural district. ... We all make our assembly in common on the day of the Sun, since it is the first day, on which God changed the darkness and matter and made the world, and Jesus Christ our Savior arose from the dead on the same day. For they crucified him on the day before Saturn's day, and on the day after (which is the day of the Sun the appeared to his apostles and taught his disciples these things. (Apology, 1, 67:1-3, 7; First Apology, 145 AD, Ante-Nicene Fathers , Vol. 1, pg. 186)
• 190AD CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA: He does the commandment according to the Gospel and keeps the Lord's day, whenever he puts away an evil mind . . . glorifying the Lord's resurrection in himself. (Vii.xii.76.4)
• 200AD TERTULLIAN: Others . . . suppose that the sun is the god of the Christians, because it is well-known that we regard Sunday as a day of joy. (To the Nations 1: 133)
• 225 AD The Didascalia 'The apostles further appointed: On the first day of the week let there be service, and the reading of the Holy Scriptures, and the oblation, because on the first day of the week our Lord rose from the place of the dead, and on the first day of the week he arose upon the world, and on the first day of the week he ascended up to heaven, and on the first day of the week he will appear at last with the angels of heaven' (Didascalia 2).
• 300AD EUSEBIUS: [The Ebionites] were accustomed to observe the Sabbath and other Jewish customs but on the Lord's days to celebrate the same practices as we in remembrance of the resurrection of the Savior. (Church History Ill.xxvii.5)
• 300 AD Eusebius of Caesarea 'The day of his [Christ's] light . . . was the day of his resurrection from the dead, which they say, as being the one and only truly holy day and the Lord's day (Proof of the Gospel 4:16:186).
• 350 AD APOSTOLIC CONSTITUTIONS: Be not careless of yourselves, neither deprive your Saviour of His own members, neither divide His body nor disperse His members, neither prefer the occasions of this life to the word of God; but assemble yourselves together every day, morning and evening, singing psalms and praying in the Lord's house: in the morning saying the sixty-second Psalm, and in the evening the hundred and fortieth, but principally on the Sabbath-day. And on the day of our Lord's resurrection, which is the Lord's day, meet more diligently, sending praise to God that made the universe by Jesus, and sent Him to us, and condescended to let Him suffer, and raised Him from the dead. Otherwise what apology will he make to God who does not assemble on that day to hear the saving word concerning the resurrection, on which we pray thrice standing in memory of Him who arose in three days, in which is performed the reading of the prophets, the preaching of the Gospel, the oblation of the sacrifice, the gift of the holy food? (Constitutions of the Holy Apostles, book 2)
• 350 AD APOSTOLIC CONSTITUTIONS: Do you therefore fast, and ask your petitions of God. We enjoin you to fast every fourth day of the week, and every day of the preparation, and the surplusage of your fast bestow upon the needy; every Sabbath-day excepting one, and every Lord's day, hold your solemn assemblies, and rejoice: for he will be guilty of sin who fasts on the Lord's day, being the day of the resurrection, or during the time of Pentecost, or, in general, who is sad on a festival day to the Lord For on them we ought to rejoice, and not to mourn. (Constitutions of the Holy Apostles, book 5)
• 350 AD APOSTOLIC CONSTITUTIONS 'Which Days of the Week We are to Fast, and Which Not, and for What Reasons: But let not your fasts be with the hypocrites; for they fast on the second and fifth days of the week. But do you either fast the entire five days, or on the fourth day of the week, and on the day of the Preparation, because on the fourth day the condemnation went out against the Lord, Judas then promising to betray Him for money; and you must fast on the day of the Preparation, because on that day the Lord suffered the death of the cross under Pontius Pilate. But keep the Sabbath, and the Lord's day festival; because the former is the memorial of the creation, and the latter of the resurrection. But there is one only Sabbath to be observed by you in the whole year, which is that of our Lord's burial, on which men ought to keep a fast, but not a festival. For inasmuch as the Creator was then under the earth, the sorrow for Him is more forcible than the joy for the creation; for the Creator is more honourable by nature and dignity than His own creatures.' (Constitutions of the Holy Apostles, book 7)
• 350 AD APOSTOLIC CONSTITUTIONS 'How We Ought to Assemble Together, and to Celebrate the Festival Day of Our Saviour's Resurrection. On the day of the resurrection of the Lord, that is, the Lord's day, assemble yourselves together, without fail, giving thanks to God, and praising Him for those mercies God has bestowed upon you through Christ, and has delivered you from ignorance, error, and bondage, that your sacrifice may be unspotted, and acceptable to God, who has said concerning His universal Church: 'In every place shall incense and a pure sacrifice be offered unto me; for I am a great King, saith the Lord Almighty, and my name is wonderful among the heathen.' (Constitutions of the Holy Apostles, book 7)
• 400 AD The Apostolic Constitutions 'And on the day of our Lord's resurrection, which is the Lord's day, meet more diligently, sending praise to God that made the universe by Jesus, and sent him to us, and condescended to let him suffer, and raised him from the dead. ' (Apostolic Constitutions 2:7:60).

First Daypart 1teach To Be Happy Birthday

We Speak truth in LOVE
'you are seeking to kill Me, a man who has told you the truth' Jn 8:40