Podkayne: I wonder if that’s what got the infamous religion Prof. started (we’re not naming names, are we?). I loved the way that he came in the first day, told us how much he despised us and then had an assistant teach the rest of the semester. Of course, he would come in from time to time and tell us about something he saw years ago on the Discovery channel or ask the ladies if Leonardo DiCaprio made them wet.
It was great. It was like having a WWF villain for a professor.
You could always check this out.
I want to become a professor just so i can use number 34.
I TA Spanish, though at Madison that means I teach it. I think ice-breakers are actually really important (I try to avoid cheesiness) because I large part of the class involves speaking: doing group exercises, having discussions with one or two other students, discussing stories they read. A good icebreaker lets them know that they will have to participate in the class, and will be spending a significant amount of time talking to their neighbors. Most of the small groups end up pretty friendly with each other as the semester goes on. Plus, the icebreaker is a good way to make them speak some Spanish on the first day (since that’s all they’ll speak from then on) in a very relaxed context.
My favorite icebreaker - one of the professors in the department teaches a course on Spanish (peninsular) culture and history. On the first day, he puts up a list of questions about himself - How old am I? What’s my favorite movie? Do I prefer rap or country western? - rather random, silly questions. Then he collects all their answers and compiles them for the next class into percentages. He can be rather deadpan, and it is really hilarious. Again, it just helps to relieve that deer-in-the-headlights so many students can have.
Crikey! Reading that list, I’ve had professors who have done some of those things! (Fortunately, never more than 1 to a prof. Unfortunately, some of them were not meant as eccentric bits of fun):
Undergraduate music professor used to decimate his over-filled classes by coming into class wearing dark glasses and speaking ‘Indonesian’ for the entire first lecture.
Undergrad history prof who used to ask impossible (for an undergraduate survey course) to answer questions, then insult us for not answering.
Professor at my partner’s university (who was ‘given’ an early retirements package just to get rid of the guy, used to call his students this, and far worse to their faces.
Could be any number of professors…
Infamous University of Minnesota history professor would assign such huge projects that students frequently carried incompletes for 2 or 3 terms! And would tell people on the first day of class to expect to have the same burden.
My best friend was a chem e major for exactly one term, and switched to maths after having a class with this professor.
Crikey! Now if I were lecturing again, I’d be torn between #22 and #38
I have to come in on the icebreakers are a lame-ass waste of time team. I studied engineering and we didn’t have time for that shit but I had to deal with it in the occasional Liberal Arts general ed class.
When I started my first job after grad school, I spent the first six weeks in a training class with twenty other newly graduated engineers. We had many instructors over that time. People taught anywhere from half a day to two days. We must have gone through the “tell me your name and something that no one else in the room knows about you” routine three or four times a week. By week five we were so sick of that shit that we were trying to outdo each other by coming up with more and more outlandish (and untrue) things.
Haj
Philosphr, I thought your pig thing was going to be a trick question so instead of drawing a pig, I wrote A PIG. What does that say about my personality?
It means you should for for the department of homeland security [if not a US citizen, then for the respective department within your nationality :)]
Just kidding, I’ve had that response before…it simply means your adept at overanalyzing. 
To IHave a Rottweiler - Thank you for that list, that made my morning. I’ve not laughed so much in quite a while. Though not as extreme as some of those listed, I have changed my personality type from time to time to keep people on the up and up, but mostly with those classes who think they can get away with anything.
Again for those who think ice breakers have no meaning, you may or may not be forgetting your very first day of classes at Uni. To some, as a matter of fact 8 out of ten 10 incoming freshman between the ages of 17, 18 and 19 are quite nervous on their first day, and at that point ,they slate is clean, so anything I can do to relax them, I will do.
To the others who simply think this is all some kind of money wasting jest - I recommend being a little more mellifluous and a little less obdurate.
I didn’t actually read the thread other than skim the OP, so I apologize if I snub any readers of AIR on the SDMB.
My favorite, which I haven’t seen but only read about in AIR, is the following. On the first day, bring in a short length of plain-white candy cane. Stripes will ruin the effect. Don’t let any students see it. Pick up a piece of chalk and write your name on the board. While your back is still turned, switch the candy cand with the chalk. Hold up the “chalk,” i.e. candy cane, and examine it without saying a word. Look “meaningfully” at the class for a moment. Then put the “chalk,” i.e. candy cane, in your mouth and chew it. Then swallow it. Use a little showmanship if you’ve got the skills. Bonus: if you ever need to get their attention again, pick up a piece of chalk and examine it wordlessly, then look meaningfully at the class. You’ll have their attention without having to eat the chalk.
I think a great variant comes from the “Kids in the Hall.” Put some white, chewable mints in an asprin bottle. Come to class a minute late and say that you’ve got a teribble headache. Throw a couple “asprin” in your hand and chew them. Then take a small swig of water and swish it around in your mouth and swallow. OMFG, I still cringe every time I think of Gezbo the Clown doing that on the “Kids in the Hall.”
My God. I’m tempted to volunteer for a section or two of English this year just so I can try js_africanus’ suggestions…
Then play soft music, burn incense, and turn down the lights. Or be funny. I’m one of those ice-breaker-haters, and I remember some of them quite vividly. I’m an introvert, and rather shy, and the last thing I want to do is be put in the spotlight in front of a bunch of strangers and try to be unique on the first day.
Exactly. You make me resent you by playing a game that humiliates me, then you use my angst to pick on me? I have no problem speaking at length on classwork or bonding with my classmates without artifice.
phall0106, the non-traditional students were always more interesting than us youths, because they’d actually lived.
They’ve got a winery and a B&B for godsakes. Of all of the small Southern Colorado towns to name, I’d have to say that Walsenberg is one of the less hopelessly boring and depressing towns in existence.
I liked the candy cane joke, but I don’t get this one. Is it that nobody likes the taste of chewed-up aspirin? (I don’t, but I’m overly sensitive about swallowing pills.) Otherwise, I’m thinking, “Big deal, so you took some ‘aspirin’ in front of the class.”
I disagreed with everyone who resented the icebreaker exercises, until I read your post. You know, what you say really reflected my state of mind as an undergrad way back when.
I was introverted and anxious, especially on the first few days of class. The thing I absolutely didn’t want to happen was to have the entire class focused on my discomfort and self-revelations. To me, simply waiting to give my spiel was really painful. I didn’t want to talk, I could feel my face flush red, and I just wanted everything to be the hell over with. Instead of increasing my comfort level, it compounded my discomfort.
Phlosphr, I respect where you’re coming from, man, but one-size-fits-all icebreakers that require students to self-disclose in front of total strangers aren’t geared for a significant minority of us who are/were very shy. Instead of being a positive experience, it’s an ordeal, which really sucks. It’s good to promote bonding and rapport, but icebreaker that increases unease should be rethought.
I hear ya man. I guess it really isn’t that big of a deal at my school as almost all of the Computer Engineering students (with the same grade classification) are all in the same classes so we already know each other anyway. I still enjoy them when they do them though.
I’d love to hear how they go over.
Yeah, it’s the chewed-up aspirin that gets me. Maybe I’m sensitive, but the taste of aspirin is enough to make me puke. So in the sketch the actor puts a bunch of aspirin in his hand and just pops them in his mouth and chews them. Then he chases them with the tiniest swig of water—just enough to really spread the chewed-up aspirin paste around the inside of his mouth. Brilliant.
I don’t think it was this story but it’s all I could find:
*
WHY FIRE TRUCKS ARE RED - THE PLEASANT VIEWER Aug. 8, 94
Do you know why fire trucks are red? Well, fire trucks are red because they have four wheels and eight men. Four and eight are twelve. Twelve inches is a foot, and a foot is a ruler. Queen Elizabeth is a ruler and the ship the Queen Elizabeth is the largest of the seven seas. The seas have fish and the fish have fins. The fins fought the Russians and the Russians are red. Fire trucks are always Rushin, therefore fire trucks are red.
Self-disclosure is not the prescribed medicine for every icebreaker there is. Icebreakers have been used in high level corporate team building/ management training, and corporate development dynamic systems for decades. Why are they still in use? Why use them when I know shy students exist in a class? Well the answer is certainly not humiliation. Give your profs that do this come credit folks, we are in these positions to teach, keep that in mind. And also keep in mind even though you are shy you may not be scared, or you may not be all that nervous either. That does not mean the person next to you isn’t. Meaning the person next to you may have traveled across the country to be at your uni, they may need some tension breakers on the first day. I rarely if ever get into course work on the first day…Do I know profs that do, of course I do. However, I do not, I found that intimidation through toughness and being slightly brash makes for an uncohesive class. This could breed anxiety, and sometimes resentment for the course materials.
Icebreakers make classrooms more productive, motivating students to be more cohesive, and they can help foster more creativity, and innovation when asking pointed questions. Which lays the ground work for a more indepth class and fosters a rich learning environment. Improving communication between students is never twated by the few who are shy or introverted. I have seen more shy, introverted students blossom into vivacious learning and socializing machines, sometimes over one semester.
And the kicker is when a student comes into my office and says, “…thank you Prof. Phil, I learned a lot in your class this semester, I think I may want to persue something in the human sciences arena.”
And that is my reward, when I can touch the students inner self, and help them to point their enerigies into something that they can foster into an acedemic career, and hopefully a life quest. We’re not all full of sh*t you know…there is some method behind our eccentricities.
Thanks to this thread I have learned some very good icebreakers, thanks all who commented.
My god I’m glad I don’t go to school with your boring “having fun wastes my valuable class time I paid for” people.
You know what I’d give for a prof who was actually sociable and engaging?
Engineering is a royal PIA. That is precisely why I wish the profs were more outgoing, sociable and willing to have fun in the classroom.
Phlosphr, you sound like an excellent teacher. Please keep doing what you’re doing. We need more profs like you (*espeically in the eng. world).
I know a few profs in our school of engineering, and yes some of them can be slightly, Ahem immalleable, yet in most other ways very concise and to the point.
I still absolutely loathe icebreakers, no matter how much people defend them. Sorry, Phlosphr. I would far rather be given a chance to sit back and watch the group dynamics and get a feel for things, instead of being forced to talk straight off. I am very talkative once I get comfortable with people, but there is no way on Earth to make me more uncomfortable than to force me to talk right away. Give me a class or two and I’ll start opening up.
Really. I promise.