First Day Vision

On the first day of my class students will shuffle into the room and find a seat wherever they please. I'll greet them at the door and get class started after everybody's in. We'll start off with introductions and maybe a fun activity--I could leave an item on groups of desks and give students an opportunity to discuss what it might be, then share the object with their classmates. The items would be related to something we're studying during the year-perhaps an insect exoskeleton to symbolize comparative anatomy? We'll see

The first day I would also take time to go over my general expectations for students and then have them flesh-out the details. This is an idea I picked up from Steve who suggested this truncated means of getting students involved while staying on schedule. 

I would also want to do something that asks what they hope to get out of this class. I could do this as an exit ticket or maybe an extended survey, depending on what kind of time we have. 

The key parts to this first day are that I show the students I care about them, that we all know the procedures in the classroom, and that we all have some idea of where the course might head in the days to come.