The following information was previously included in an April 2025 teaching resource created by the Teaching and Learning Center.
This guide provides an overview of key steps UCLA instructors — including teaching assistants, instructors new to teaching at the university, and those with more experience — might take at the start of each quarter on the first day/week of class to welcome your students and enhance your teaching.
Additionally, the TLC staff is available for confidential, non-evaluative individual consultations. Whether you’re exploring how to integrate first day/week activities or revising your syllabus, we’re here to help. Schedule a meeting or email the TLC directly at edp@teaching.ucla.edu.
On the first day of class and beyond, you might consider:
- Consider asking students to complete a brief pre-quarter survey. Consider using the survey to learn about student interest in the course, their learning goals, and any anticipated challenges, accessibility needs, or resource gaps students may face.
- Check that your course materials and lectures are digitally accessible. To meet upcoming federal guidance on digital accessibility standards, those teaching at UCLA may need to adjust their course materials.
- Create community agreements with your students. Community agreements are shared norms that you co-create with your students that encourage and support courteous, professional behavior in our class and ensure everyone feels welcome, valued, and respected during our class discussions.
- Review the syllabus with the class. By reviewing the syllabus, you are able to address common questions such as where assessments are posted and when they are due, the late assignment policy, and how quickly students may expect email replies from you. Activities such as a syllabus scavenger hunt or a syllabus quiz in Bruin Learn take between 10-15 minutes and may be completed in class or offline.
- Share resources on campus to support student wellbeing and academic success. Instructors can empower students to handle academic setbacks productively by using language that normalizes challenges and expresses confidence in their abilities, and by offering practical learning strategies and guiding them to relevant resources.
- If you asked students to complete a pre-quarter survey, share themes from their responses. Sharing their responses in a de-identified manner will signal to students that you value their participation and are interested in getting to know them.
- Use an icebreaker before starting an in-class activity or discussion. You might consider using iClicker or having students discuss the topic in small groups. Regardless of the icebreaker you choose, consider offering prompts that are accessible to all students (e.g., asking where students traveled over the break might exclude students who don’t have the resources to travel or those who might have other obligations).
- Find ways to employ active learning strategies in your class. Active learning involves a range of simple and complex strategies, from pausing during a lecture to allow students to reflect on their notes, to providing students with opportunities in class to discuss their learning, to engaging in role-playing and in-class simulations.
- Assign exit tickets at the end of the class. Exit tickets are quick, formative feedback tools that give you insight into students’ learning. Exit tickets also provide students opportunities to practice metacognition, or to reflect on their thinking and learning, which enables them to see themselves as people who can do well in the course. Exit tickets may be given at the end of each session or less frequently, such as at the end of a unit.
- Share a list of examples of why students might attend drop-in hours and questions they might ask during drop-in hours. Explicit discussion about drop-in hours demystifies that offering to students, who often skip drop-in hours because they believe they need specific questions in order to attend.
- Model teaching practices you plan to employ throughout the quarter. For example, if students will primarily work in groups throughout the quarter, consider having them work in groups during the first session, rather than lecturing.