Share some information about yourself with your students such as your background, likes, dislikes, or your teaching experience, and encourage your students to share some information about themselves.Try asking questions about: previous educational experiences or places of study prior experience or knowledge related to the course content future goals and aspirations in terms of the course, university and beyond family, hobbies, sport, and pets etc. Use fun icebreakers like the Superpower game and remember to identify your superpower to your class.For cloud students, ask questions that they can answer in an e-portfolio or discussion thread. Dr Mary Dracup, Faculty Arts and Education, suggests the following:'After reading about teaching diverse cohorts, I'm going to try a few strategies to involve my students more in class-wide learning conversations, such as asking all students to fill out a survey in the first class giving me information on their background, aspirations, interests, etc. so I have more to go on as I lead the discussion and set the activities'. Settling in: experiences of mature-age students Getting to know your students means taking time to appreciate how they are settling into university life and what issues they may be encountering. For example, students from a mature-age background grapple with particular issues around 'fitting in' with those who are often much younger. Take a couple of minutes to listen to what mature-age students from Plymouth University have to say.­­­ A transcript may be downloaded here: Experiences of mature students (DOCX 18KB)