Includes bibliographical references (p. 149-156).

Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- CHAPTER 1: Classroom and course management -- Nuts and bolts of successful beginnings -- Teach students to do well in your course -- Make your attendance policy clear -- Gather information about your students -- Accomodate students who have special needs -- Some ideas on promoting student success -- Clarifying your testing policy -- Issue of academic integrity -- Some quick tips on managing the learning environment -- Guidelines for student success (handout) -- Preparing for and taking exams (handout) -- More tips for test preparation and test taking (handout) -- CHAPTER 2: Positive start -- First day classroom activities and icebreakers -- Family name exercise -- "What's in a name?" exercise -- Stand up-sit down exercise -- Activities that help students find commonalities -- Introduction by identities exercise -- Student disclosure exercises -- Dyadic interviews -- Informal sharing exercises -- Walk around the room exercises -- Scavenger hunt -- Wheel within a wheel -- Alphabetize exercise -- Introductions and repetition -- Introducing yourself -- Course expectation activities -- Your goal: a relaxed atmosphere from day 1 -- Personal reference inventory (PRI).

CHAPTER 3: Creating a welcome classroom environment -- "Chilly classroom climate" -- What students want from us as faculty -- How to build rapport and connect with your students -- Specific tips for building rapport and connecting with students -- Promoting student-student interaction -- Participation, motivation, and perseverance -- CHAPTER 4: Promoting student participation and motivation -- Promoting self-regulation: teaching students how to learn and improving student learning -- Interactive classroom -- Interactive lecture -- Engaging your students-even the passive and resistant ones -- Class discussion -- Planning and executing classroom discussions -- Cooperative and collaborative learning -- Benefits-and risks-of cooperative and collaborative learning -- Some specific group learning strategies -- Essence of promoting student participation and motivation.

CHAPTER 5: Dealing with incivility in the college classroom -- What is classroom "incivilty"? -- Guidelines for courtesy and respect -- Specific disruptive behaviors- and how to handle them -- Dealing with student who have side conversations -- Dealing with students who sleep or do unrelated work -- Dealing with student disruption in large-lecture classes -- It's always good to have a plan -- CHAPTER 6: Keeping the ball rolling to a fruitful conclusion -- Motivating your students to complete the semester -- Role of writing exercises in keeping students engaged, promoting critical thinking skills, and fostering learning -- Other active learning exercises to help your students persevere -- Drawing the semester to a positive close -- Taking class notes -- CHAPTER 7: turning "successful beginnings" into successful teaching exercises -- Appendix: Creating your course syllabus: a brief overview -- Helpful teching resources -- References -- About the author.