Beginning the year on the right note is the goal of all culinary instructors. Gold Medal Classroom writers have discussed and written about its importance in previous articles. Take a look below and read on to discover new or refreshing ideas on teaching tactics specifically applicable to the first few class sessions of the year.

Discover new ideas from various approaches to getting to know new students, teaching safety and knife skills, to beginning mise en place strategies within the very first kitchen lab. And, good luck with a positive and productive year in your culinary classroom.

• Teaching Knowledge Tactics: Driving the learning cycle through connection and communication.
  “Getting to know students from day one is among the first opportunities to successfully participate in the knowledge exchange process. I ask each student to share something no one knows about them or any workplace experience that might shed light on topics we will cover. While fun (and perhaps awkward), this begins an open conversation and puts people at ease. It also allows me to understand students’ unique insights and experiences. I see them where they are on the learning cycle.”
  By Warren Leigh, culinary professor, caterer, consultant and retired restaurant operator

• Building a Rapport with Students: Building trust and gaining respect through actions such as helping in the dish pit and asking for preferred pronouns. It’s leading by example and leading from the front.
  “Building respect starts on day one by learning students’ names and pronouncing them properly. I recently approached a student whose name I knew but she did not know I knew it. Just by calling her name and pronouncing it right, she was excited to talk to me and engaged in what I had to say and vice versa. Ask students what pronouns they prefer. As culinary educators, students view us in positions of authority and have their guard up around us. By asking what their preferred pronouns are and sharing ours with them, students may become more comfortable with us and thereby take down their guard. A simple gesture like this can help them see you are in fact a regular person just like them. Take it even further and ask if they have a name/nickname they prefer to be identified by. Again, this will help the student feel more comfortable.”
  By Amanda Miller, CC, CPC, instructor at the Culinary Institute of Michigan - Muskegon  

• First Class Game Reveals an Understanding of Pride and Cooking Passion: Playing the game “What Would Your Last Meal Be?” reveals much about students and their backgrounds while teaching a valuable culinary lesson.
  “During the summer, the teacher side of our brain turns to the question of what to do on the first day of class. I have a game for you to play. The game I recommend is the age-old question: What would your last meal be? Chefs and instructors have been playing this game for many years. Now it’s time to have young culinary students play it as well.”
  By Chef Adam Weiner, Fifty Minute Classroom columnist

• Beginning the School Year with Engaging Activities: Chef Adam Weiner provides instructors with game and discussion ideas for engaging students from the first day.
  “It’s a new school year and it is amazing how much has changed in the last two years. I am taking the opportunity to provide you with a thorough outline of what you can do in the first several days (or even weeks) of class to ease you and your students into this new beginning.”
  By Chef Adam Weiner, Fifty Minute Classroom columnist

• A Place for Everything and Everything in Its Place: Teach the benefits of mise en place from day one.
  “Instructors understand how mise en place helps create success in our lives, not only in the kitchen but beyond the kitchen doors. We place and pull orders, set up stations, set up the dish machine, pull tools and ingredients for demos and it all begins with mise en place. From start to finish, mise en place is firmly entrenched in culinary routines. We need to teach our students these values on the first day of kitchen lab.”
  By Dr. Jennifer Denlinger, instructor at the Poinciana Campus of Valencia College

• Teaching the basics of knife safety, non-COVID-19 related PPE, lifting and climbing, and the importance of call outs. Part one of a two-part series.
  Teaching the basics of using unfamiliar equipment, burns and heat exhaustion, carts and speed racks, fire safety and evacuations. Part two of a two-part series.
  “There are two major types of safety issues in a commercial kitchen. One is food safety and these are Serve Safe requirements. The second type is kitchen safety or personal safety, which is often referred to as OSHA safety. Many students confuse the two. The purpose of practicing food safety is making sure the people who eat food are safe from food-borne illnesses. The purpose of OSHA safety is to keep the people working in the foodservice business safe from getting injured or even killed. OSHA safety rules apply to everyone from owners to managers and from the front to the back of the house.”
  By Chef Adam Weiner, Fifty Minute Classroom columnist

• Launching Students on the Right Foot: Chef Paul Sorgule defines critical attitudes that help students succeed from day one through graduation and beyond.
  “Here are some critical attitudes that might find their way into your day one and every day thereafter. These are traits that will define a student’s ability to succeed.”
  By Chef Paul Sorgule, Future Thinking in Education columnist

• Another Year, Another Challenge (Opportunity): Teach the 10 most-essential aptitudes and set the table of success.
  “What are we trying to achieve over the next year, two years, or four? What is it that will set the stage for their success and continued love of cooking and expressing themselves through food? Maybe, just maybe, it would be wise to start with some universal objectives and then adapt them to fit the student of today.”
  By Chef Paul Sorgule, Future Thinking in Education columnist