Jennie Carr, an Associate Professor at Bridgewater College, explains that researchers have found “strong positive correlations between [faculty] building relationships and rapport with students and academic achievement, attendance, student interest, motivation, empowerment, self-efficacy student attention, classroom behaviors and interactions (Benson, Cohen, Buskist, 2005, Houser & Frymier, 2009, Kozanitis, Desbiens, Chouinard, 2007; Myers, Goldman, Atkinson, Ball, Carton, Tindage & Anderson, 2016)”. Some ways you can develop connections with students in the first few weeks of class are listed below. Some techniques work better for smaller (n<60) classrooms while others work well with all class sizes. As the Eberly Center at Carnegie Mellon notes: “Even in large lecture classes, it is possible to get to know a conspicuous number of your students, a few at a time. For students, it’s the effort that counts”. Some of these tips I have shared before, however, I have added some new insights and additional information that may be helpful (hopefully).
Learning Student Names:
Name Coach: https://cloud.name-coach.com/ – Assign students the task of recording their name and writing the phonetic pronunciation of their name. Name Coach slows down the recording to help you hear how they pronounce their names. This will help you to listen to their names and learn how to pronounce their names correctly. Use Name Tents – If seating allows space for students to have name tents, ask students to write their names in large letters on both sides of a folded 5 x 8 index card and to keep this card on their desks/tables for the first few classes. The Canvas Roster: https://academiccontinuity.yale.edu/faculty/how-guides/canvas/canvas-class-roster is available in the People menu of the Canvas course to all Canvas roles except Observer, displays the name, email address, role, photo, and NameCoach recording (if available) for each member of the course. Using the Photo Roster tool, you can change the page or print layout; search and filter the list of course members; group by role, section, or group; and print or export the current view. Official IU photos and associated features are only available to instructors in SIS courses. The roster has a feature that allows you to print out an attendance sheet. You can use that sheet to make annotations that will help you remember your students’ names. The Eberly Center suggests taking a few extra seconds for each student to identify their most 1-2 noticeable traits. Be sure to include ways of pronouncing names that are unfamiliar to you.
Introduce Yourself
Consider sharing information with students beyond your name and the name of the course you’re teaching. Vanderbilt University suggests one of the following:
Personal biography: your place of birth, family history, educational history, hobbies, sport and recreational interests, how long you have been at the university, and what your plans are for the future.
Educational biography: how you came to specialize in your chosen field, a description of your specific area of expertise, your current projects, and your future plans.
Teaching biography: how long have you taught, how many subjects/classes have you taught, what level of class you normally teach, what you enjoy about being in the classroom, what do you learn from your students, and what you expect to teach in the future.
Have a seating plan
When students arrive in your class, let them sit where they want, and then ask them to remain in those seats for at least two weeks. Create a seating chart for the room and have students fill in their names on the seating chart. Refer to the chart as you conduct the course. This reference will allow you to learn names according to placement in the classroom. (University of Lethbridge)
Icebreakers: The Center for Teaching and Learning at IU-Indy https://ctl.iupui.edu/Resources/Preparing-to-Teach/Using-Ice-Breakers reminds us to use icebreakers as a way of getting acquainted with students and establish classroom community on the first day of class. However, you can use small icebreakers beyond the first few weeks of class to help build rapport. Top Hat https://app.teaching.iu.edu/tools/top-hat provides a list of icebreakers that can be used in various contexts, including course- or assignment-specific icebreakers https://tophat.com/blog/classroom-icebreakers/
Having One on One or Small Group Meetings/Office Hours – Carr (2020) recommends setting up 1:1 or small group appointments to meet with students during the first few weeks of class. “Meaningful interactions with students outside of classes is listed by the National Survey of Student Engagement as a high-impact educational practice (NSSE, 2017). Approximately 95% of my students attend. During the 1:1 meet and greet meeting, my primary goal is to get to know the students on a personal level. I explain to them very simply, “I care about you first and foremost as a person – I want you to be successful in this class.” The meeting encourages students to not only find my office but also helps reduce anxious feelings about meeting with faculty when they have a more serious concern”The Canvas Scheduler Tool https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Instructor-Guide/How-do-I-add-a-Scheduler-appointment-group-in-a-course-calendar/ta-p/1021 allows you to create a block of time where a student or groups of students can meet with you. Students can sign up for appointment times in their own calendars. Have students say their name when asking for a response to a question during your lecture or discussion, or when they ask a question. Explain to them that this helps not only you, but their classmates learn their names.
In addition to office hours – When possible, arrive to class a little early and stay a little later to chat with students. This will also allow students who may not feel comfortable raising questions during class to approach you in a low-pressure way.
Asking students to complete confidential student profiles – Another way to get to know your students is to have them complete a student profile (you can use Google Tools, Microsoft 360, or Qualtrics to create a profile: https://forms.gle/P2upb3JKzhSnzBRE8). Profiles are a form with questions that allow you to better understand who your students are, what they know about the class/discipline, as well as the types of expectations they have for the course. It also allows you to understand what types of boundaries they have in terms of work and family that may impact how they perform in your course.