Suggested course level

Both upper and lower level undergraduate courses

Activity purpose

• Students will identify important information in the course syllabus.

Materials required

• Scavenger hunt handout
• Small prizes

Activity instructions

1. Go through your course presentation and identify 7 – 10 things that you want to highlight (how to contact you, late assignment policy, etc).
2. Turn these into questions and put them on a handout. (Example: What’s my late policy? What should I do if I’m going to miss a class?)  I make sure to have at least one question about mental health resources or resources for students who are food/housing insecure in order to reduce the stigma around these topics.
3. Then, break students into groups of 5, give each one a handout and send them on a “scavenger hunt” through the course presentation to find the answers to the questions. You can also have them use the course learning management system to answer a question. (I like to hide an “Easter egg” on the front page of Moodle).
4. The winning team will win a small prize. The first team to get all questions right is the winner, but make sure to carry the activity on until all groups have finished.
5. I like to suggest that teams who are finished should help those who haven’t found the answers yet. After the activity is over, go through the answers and then discuss the rest of the course presentation.

Debrief questions / activities

• Ask me 5 questions about the course presentation.
• Based on the course presentation, let’s identify the top 5 things students can do to be successful in the course.

Activity variations

• After the scavenger hunt is over, have students stay in their groups and go through the rest of the course presentation to come up with 3 unanswered questions.

Tags: first day of class, ice breaker, scavenger hunt, course presentation, syllabus