At the beginning of the course, it's always helpful to break up the monotony of rules and procedures, syllabus, etc. with an icebreaker activity. I usually incorporate information gathering from the individual student (for my purposes of discovering their likes and dislikes, how they learn best, etc.) as well as team activities so they can get to know each other better. When students participate in team building activities, I am observing which students step up as leaders and which students shy away from the activity. I like the idea of color-coding the pages. I use different fonts and font sizes for emphasis on my syllabus.
