Syllabus speed dating as a first-day, ice-breaker exercise? Maryellen Weimer, an emerita professor at Penn State Berks, who is responsible for Teaching Professor Blog, offers this and a number of other activities for the first day of class. You may find resources from Faculty Focus, the site her blog is associated with, useful as well.
For Ryerson resources on what to do on the first day of class, see this handout from the Learning and Teaching Office.
If you're teaching CMN 314, I recommend Sandra Rosenberg's ice-breaker exercises, detailed in the "Teaching Tips" page of this blog.
In an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, James M Lang weighs the advantages of rich class discussion using online polls against the risk of smartphone distraction. The article links to a variety of valuable resources on online polling and device distraction and includes a brief list of sensible approaches to handling student smartphone use in the classroom.
At this point in the semester, there are usually a few tired and teary eyes in class, in offices, and in hallways. While I have come to expect this – first as a TA, then as an instructor – I have remained reluctant to ever normalize this period of high stress, high anxiety, high emotional student life. I try to take a few minutes in class to point out the importance of taking care of oneself, particularly one's mental health, but as I am not trained to diagnose mental distress or distinguish amongst degrees of intensity, I feel highly inadequate as I do so.
This term, I have also decided to send an email to my students (see below), offering reminders of support and resources (though without referring to course obligations, extensions, or accommodations).
I share it with you, unedited and imperfect, in case you would like to speak to the ways you have addressed this in your own class or in communications with your students.