What can we do the first day of class to give students a feel for what to expect in the course and generate some enthusiasm for learning and statistics? To investigate this question, a number of prominent statistics educators were recently asked "What do you like to do in your first class of the semester"? Their responses and experiences of the author are summarized in this paper to provide a collection of tips, stories, topics for generating discussion, and general advice for getting a course going in a positive direction.
There is an increased emphasis on writing in today's undergraduate curriculum, and papers can play an important role in an introductory statistics course. With the existence of good interactive statistical software it is possible to move the classic introductory statistics course away from the study of formulas to the study of statistical thinking and the role of statistics in society. In such a new course students get an increased understanding of statistical ideas by writing papers across a wide range of topics; actual topics having ranged from a comparison of statistics and religion to a study of the relationship between time of first class in the morning and the distance from the bed to the alarm clock.
