We have talked a few times about the importance of doing ice
breakers during your sessions. Ice breakers are great because they help
establish a positive environment and provide an opportunity for your students
to get to know you. They also set the tone for an interactive session that is
going to require student participation. Below are some ideas that you gave us for ice breakers, as well as some other ideas you can try! Let us know how they work, or if you have any more ideas you would recommend!
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Ice Breaker Ideas:
- Two truths and a lie
- Highs and lows of the week/Rose, Bud, Thorn/ Crappy-Happy
- Have students make up ice breaker questions on pieces of paper, and each session pick one or two to use as your ice breakers.
- Pictionary
- People Bingo (works for groups)
- Bring in/discuss relevant news articles or stories related to your topic (or ask your student to)
- Watch a relevant TED talk either on your subject or on growth mindset/study techniques
- Memory with vocab terms
- Life Boxes: Take a sheet of paper and fold it in quarters. Label each box with one of the following headings: Childhood, high school, College, future. In each box, draw a simple picture that represents something important to them during that part of their life.
- Finish the sentence game (come up with your own starts, for example The riskiest thing I ever did was…)
- Potential Ice Breaker Questions:
- Best event of the week
- Thing you are most looking forward to for the week/weekend
- What’s your favorite thing about this subject?
- What are you going to eat for dinner?
- Tell us a random fact about you
- What is your favorite _______?
- What was your first job?
I really like starting off each session with some sort of ice breaker activity. At the beginning of the semester I did more of the game type ones (two truths and a lie, life boxes, etc) but as the semester went on I have transitioned to ones about more current events such as what was the best thing that happened that day and what they are most looking forward to in the next week. I like doing the one of what they are most looking forward to because then I can start the session the next time asking them how the event they were looking forward to went. This is an easy transition into the session and I think it also makes the student feel like I am taking a real interest in their life outside of the course material. I would highly suggest this ice breaker question to others!
ReplyDeleteThanks for posting this list as well since it is always nice to have a number of these icebreaker questions on hand for any moment. I will definitely try some of the rest of these out over the next couple of weeks.
I know a lot of people like the fun, general ice breakers -- which I have used and liked too -- but I think the ice breaker is also a good opportunity to get students interested/excited about what you will be discussing that day (or about a strategy, like growth mindset). I know this is tough for some subjects (e.g. math), but I think it can be fairly easy to do for subjects like chemistry, physics, biology, or psychology, which contain topics that can be of great general interest and have many obvious applications to everyday life. I have found that doing this really sets the tone for the remainder of the session, as students' attitudes toward the rest of the session tend to be more inquisitive. For this reason, I particularly like the ideas of relevant TED talks and "What's your favorite thing about this subject?"
ReplyDeleteOf course, it's nice to mix in some fun ones as well. I'd like to hear if anyone else has come up with good ways to combine ice breakers with the material. Thanks for taking the time to make this list! It's great to have these all in one place.
These are great ice breaker ideas; some that I have used before and others that I have yet to try. I think ice breakers are an essential part to mentoring sessions because they allow for mentors and students to get to know one another. Through ice breakers, mentors and students can develop relationships that will benefit them both. For students, they will be able to better understand and trust their mentors and be more comfortable communicating their problems/worries. For mentors, they will gain a knowledge of their student's likes/dislikes, personality traits, etc and use that to modify their sessions to fit their students.
ReplyDeleteThrough my own personal experience, I usually use more formal ice breakers in the beginning of the semester. As the semester goes by, my ice breaker activities tend to become more informal conversations in the beginning of the session. I think this may just come from familiarity with your student and knowing what their interests are (conversation starters).
Thanks for your share!!! Ice Breaker is like the warm-up activity to increase the interest of students at the beginning of the class so that it is beneficial for students to continue to learning. I usually struggle about coming up with interesting ice breaker activity. The share helps me!!!! Also, I think by ice breaker, mentors and mentees get familiar with each other not just about the course but about the life. In this way, there is potential trust bridge between mentors and mentees. Mentees are more likely to trust mentors and regard us as friend not just a tutor. I like the TED talk since it is great way for us to share opinions which are beneficial for both mentors and mentees.
ReplyDeleteI think ice breakers are great! Becoming friends and getting to know students helps make the session more comfortable. I think being open and having a comfortable environment are really important to learning. The student can feel free to ask questions and share their ideas freely in this environment. Ice breakers are a great way to create this environment and learn some interesting facts about other people. These are some great ideas that I am definitely going to try out! Thanks!
ReplyDeleteI used a new icebreaker for my session last week and it went really well. It was simply called the M&M game, but it can be done with skittles or any other candy with at least 5 flavors/colors. Start with each student picking 5-6 candies at random and don't let them eat yet. Each color/flavor corresponds to a different topic. For example, I used red to be a hobby, yellow as a dream job, and green for their favorite vacation. Choose any topics you like, or there are examples online. Then we just went in rainbow order and shared our answer for each one. Very easy and they got to eat the candy too!
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