Todd’s last question is worth addressing here, though the issue felt too specific when I wrote the post.

Printers are dumb. Copiers are dumber. And when you use both, you’ve gotta eliminate the guesswork. So I took those photos into Photoshop and crushed out the grays. So now we’re at lots of blacks and whites and very few midtones, which should reproduce fairly accurately. We’ll see.

I see you all nodding your heads as you read Dan’s post. Good ideas, right? Now how does this impact the handouts we give to our students? Are we “building” those or simply reproducing them? Take these techniques and apply them to our classrooms because we’ve got similar responsibilities there. I’ll be the first to admit that I do waaaaay too much “Write Great Stuff Here.” Proud to say that I have never hit Print from PP, though.

Where are my bonus points? I haven’t seen the show, but from what I’ve read here and elsewhere I get why he’s there and laughed when I saw that slide.

Do all those photos show up well on the copies you’re handing out?

Subtle references aside, that’s a really nice syllabus you’ve got there. I had fun reading it, which is a lot to say for a class syllabus.

I’ll second the request for a video podcast so I discuss good presentation techniques with strangers on the subway via my iPod.

And the things that we teachers told them that first day would have to be repeated throughout the year when relevant, because they wouldn’t remember it from the first day anyway. For example, you can explain your homework policy, but when you assign that first homework, you’re going to have to remind them. So why not wait until you assign that first homework, when you really have their attention and they have a need for the the “homework policy” info.

So, I try to think to myself, what would I (if I was a student) really want to know on that first day? What fears, concerns, questions and hopes would I have walking into my teacher’s room?

In other words, how can I get those big questions answered for my students, leaving the details to be dealt with as they arise and are needed? I also see it as not wasting my precious class time with them by spending it on something that will have to be repeated, and would be more appropriately shared later.

Just another way I try to stay relevant to them and their needs.

Jackie, somewhere in the first week, no matter what the subject or the class, every teacher runs through her syllabus.

Maybe there is some innovative syllabus work out there I’m unaware of but I kinda doubt it. The reality for student x is that in five or more classes she’s gonna get a thick packet including (variously) school policies, class policies, school expected learning results, and state standards. The teacher will take a linear route through the material and straight from the sound of this dull starter’s pistol, the student knows it’s gonna be a year like every other.

Which is fine if a student has enjoyed every other year, but for struggling math student y, she hasn’t, and this isn’t fine.

Somewhere in my second year I realized this and then built a condensed syllabus. Not only that, I chopped out the important parts so students would have something to occupy themselves while I talked, revealed each portion individually, and took guesses.

I hear rumor that some teachers develop class rules with the students during this time. I’m not sure I’m ready for that but I do know that something different has to happen here, that as first impressions go, your standard syllabus experience ain’t a great one.

P.S. The field trip policy was school policy at my last school, my policy at this one. My students seems to understand the policy at this one but they forge my signature anyway.

P.P.S. This presentation’s gonna surface in a couple different forms around here, video probably last among them.