Icebreakers

Ugh. Icebreakers. (Eye roll.) What a waste of time. 

That’s how I used to feel as a student. I remember one icebreaker as a first-year student, where we were asked to share an embarrassing moment. I felt put on the spot, and the only thing I could think of was when I was five years old, at my first swim meet, and so nervous I urinated on the starting block. I was a fairly self-confident person at 18 years but nevertheless not prepared to open myself up with that level of vulnerability on the first day of my college career. 

As a professor, I better appreciate the value and purpose of icebreakers, especially now, with the different challenges our students face. Today, many students struggle with their mental health, particularly with feelings of loneliness and anxiety, both being steadily on the rise. At the same time, the roles of professors have changed from primarily conduits and creators of knowledge to facilitators of knowledge development and mentors who help students develop skills like teamwork and collaboration. Building icebreakers into your routine can foster a strong sense of community and (if done with an eye towards inclusivity) help reduce anxiety, and thereby positively impact our broader goals of learning and skill development. But—and my 18-year-old self would agree—not if the purpose is unclear and not if you haven’t considered how accessible the activity is for the broad range of bodies and minds that fill our classrooms. 

I have had great success building relationships with and between my students while simultaneously linking icebreaker activities to the course objectives. These are some variables I consider to ensure that everyone can enjoy and benefit from the activities: 

As an example, in my 400-student Lifespan Human Development course with predominantly first-semester, first-year students transitioning away from home, who haven’t met a whole lot of people yet and may be nervous about doing well in school, my icebreaker purpose is to lighten the mood and offer an accessible way to introduce the kinds of (sometimes difficulty or taboo) topics this course will cover. 

The first slide students see in my class is a public service announcement about the increase in sexually transmitted diseases in assisted living facilities. It’s an image (I also describe it verbally) of two older folks of different races and sexes who are in a sexual position (fully clothed). I ask students to write down one word that pops into their mind when they first see the slide, and then I ask them to introduce themselves to one person in front of, beside, and behind them, share the word they wrote down, and explain why that word came up for them (if they can). 

We usually end up with surface-level and reactionary words like “gross” and “wrinkled.” I then show them another slide of the words my developmental psychologist friends provided. Most lend a deeper perspective to the image (ageism, stigma about sexuality in older adulthood, and stigma about race and interracial relationships). In the end, we have a good laugh (which builds closeness and releases endorphins), get a peek into some of the deeper topics covered in the course, and build some confidence for talking in a large class. I also repeat this activity a few more times throughout the course with different topics; students can then observe the development of their deeper thinking about developmental psychology. 

A colleague described another activity that helps develop skills students will need to work collaboratively on a group project. She gives small groups their own 24-piece puzzle-in-a-bag (no box to look at). Students race to put the puzzle together. They eventually realize that the instructor removed one of the pieces from each puzzle and swapped them into another puzzle bag. The goal is to figure out what helped the group succeed, determine what made the task difficult, and relate these insights to doing group work. You could envision tweaking this activity a bit to be relevant for a wide range of courses, maybe a methods course, where you can consider how missing vital instructions could affect your procedure section and replication procedures. 

Finally, another colleague told me about a consensus-building activity that was fun, relatively quick, and created movement. Students had to come to a consensus about something, let’s say about who the greatest band is, or what the definition of a sandwich should be. Using sticky notes on the walls, students worked in small groups to put up a few ideas. Maybe they wrote Nirvana, U2, and the Beatles, among others. After a few minutes, groups moved round-robin style to the next station. They could upvote, downvote, or remove any of the sticky notes at that station, repeating the process several times until eventually the class arrived at a consensus. Even if the students don’t find consensus, I could imagine all sorts of rich conversation to be had about this process that would be relevant to many skills associated with class learning outcomes. 

I encourage you to explore icebreakers as one option in your course. Here are a few additional resources that might spark some ideas for your class. Enjoy!