Introduction

The purpose of this chapter is to describe a session suitable for introducing new instructors to your mathematics program. As mentioned in Chapter 1 of this book, we envision a training program that includes intensive pre-semester training as an integral and important component. Throughout this book we have made reference to the pre-semester training materials developed by Shure, Black and Shaw [103] at the University of Michigan. Our experience suggests that such a pre-semester training program provides new instructors with a set of foundational experiences that the meetings described in Chapters 4–15 build upon.

Unfortunately, circumstances such as budget, availability of training personnel, and time sometimes make an intensive pre-semester training program a luxury that departments feel that they cannot afford. Recognizing this reality, we include this chapter that describes a very basic form of pre-semester training. The orientation sessions that we have described here raise many of the issues that will be expanded upon by in-semester training sessions, such as grading student work, using cooperative learning and teaching with technology. However, the sessions that we describe in this chapter should not be seen as a “stand alone” training program. They are intended to help instructors to recognize the issues that they will likely have to cope with on the first day or during the first week of class.