At the first day of class ask all students to take off their shoes and put them into one pile. Then ask students to pick a pair of shoes and find out who they belong to. After finding that person ask a couple of questions about that student. After the whole class is done. Each student will discuss to the class what they found out about their fellow student. It also gives the instructor an insight of each individual student.

I have been teaching for fourteen years and I have worked on this area a lot the past few years. I am finding out the more one student knows about the other and their instructor to real life situations the more eager they are to learn and challenge one another. They also tend to want to come to class.