Learning your students’ names quickly is a crucial element in building rapport, creating community within a discussion-based course, and facilitating many classroom management tasks like grading participation or attendance. Even if you do not consider yourself to be naturally “good at names,” you can improve your recall by following a few simple tips.
- Commit to the goal of learning student names, ideally within a set timeframe. I even announce my goal to my class, so they understand my efforts (see #3).
- Prepare before the first day of class. Review your class roster several times, noting in advance names that might be difficult to pronounce if you call roll aloud. If you are an auditory learner, read your roster aloud. If you are a visual learner, you might try looking at it with a “soft focus” gaze for short periods in between reading sessions. If you are a kinesthetic learner, try retyping the roster names. Some campus information systems even give instructors access to student ID photos, which can help you begin to associate faces to names.
- Work on it during the first day of class. Take a little extra time if you call roll aloud to jot down some identifying feature (hair color, glasses, etc) by each name on your roster. Consider having students fill out index cards — either with neutral information like major or other courses this semester, or with answers to an open-ended question (“tell me 3 things about you”). Explain that you will be using the cards to help you learn their names. Ask students to say their names each time they ask a question or make a comment. In a very small course, you could ask students to introduce themselves to the class. Repeat names as often as you can (“Jenny’s question is important because…”). Try calling roll again at the very end of class and see how many you can guess — make a game out of it.
- Review your roster and your notes as soon as possible after class. Consciously work on recalling faces. If you collect index cards, use those to help you associate some fact or detail with each student.
- Practice using names in class as often as possible. Arrive a couple minutes early to the second class and try to get the names of the early arrivals. Call roll for the first couple class meetings, even if you don’t do that throughout the semester.
Some other tips and strategies can be found at:
- UVA Teaching Resource Center
- Bowling Green State University (tips for very large classes)
- University of Nebraska-Lincoln
- Successful Academic newsletter (by coach Mary McKinney)
Got a good story about the importance of learning student names? Let us know in the comments!
[By flickr user D'Arcy Norman (CC-licensed)]
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9 Responses to Learning Student Names
Ethan Watrall - August 24, 2009 at 8:22 am
This is one of my greatest challenges – I’m absolutely horrible with student names. One of the things that I’ve taken to doing (in classes with smaller enrollment) is to have them introduce themselves (not particularily unique strategy). However, I also ask them to to answer a particular question relating to class content. So, for instance, when I teach my Social History of Digital Games class, I ask students what their favorite game is (and why). This helps their identity (name) gel in my sieve-like brain.
Delaney Kirk - August 24, 2009 at 8:26 am
I used to struggle with learning names but have made it a priority. After all, we expect our students to learn theories, facts, concepts…why shouldn’t we be able to learn names?
Here are more tips on learning student names:
http://www.delaneykirk.com/2007/08/httpwwwdelane-1.html
Boone Gorges - August 24, 2009 at 9:12 am
My method for learning student names is abrupt and possibly rude but pretty successful. Aside from some of the tips listed above (taking roll, stating a goal of learning names by such-and-such a date to the students), I simply ask each student every time he or she starts to talk what his or her name is. It’s annoying to have to interrupt the flow of the conversation, but the annoyingness actually sorta works in my favor, as I’m so anxious not to have to ask anymore that I tend to learn faster.
Chris Andrews - August 24, 2009 at 9:25 am
This has always been a struggle for me, and I’ve been embarrassed when I can’t remember a student’s name at some point after midterms. After trying a few different techniques, I’ve found something that works for me. My method is short and sweet–I try to have students turn in something (usually a super-short writing assignment or reading quiz) that I’m able to respond to very quickly and then turn back to them the next class meeting. Walking around the room and handing the paper to the specific student matches the name with the face and a location in the room, which is great. With this, I tend to have 90% of names learned within a day or two, and 100% by the second week.
Mark Sample - August 24, 2009 at 9:47 am
I ask students to wear the same thing to class everyday for the entire semester. It’s a joke, but there are always one or two students who do. And you know, I always learn their names first.
meg - August 24, 2009 at 11:35 am
When I taught at a big state school, it would take me about three weeks to learn 150 students’ names, as long as I was handing work back to them every class meeting (most of the time a pop-quiz question on an index card). It was well worth it; there was muuuuuch less falling asleep if they knew I might say, “What do you think about Pandarus’ behavior, TIFFANY?”
All that training has become a sort of party trick. In a 35-person class, I can usually memorize all the names by the end of the first class — except that I tend to confuse women’s names beginning with vowels.
Matt - August 24, 2009 at 11:53 am
I get myself to learn student names by spending a few minutes on it at the beginning of class during the first few weeks of the semester. I usually have my students sit in a semi-circle, so I just go around the room and have students say their names in succession. Once we go around the room once, I send it back around again and make a game of it by asking whether any student can repeat everyone’s name. And then — and this is key — I publicly embarrass myself by trying to do it myself. Invariably, I get about 75-80% of the names right but remain stuck on just a few. Concentrating on just those few going forward makes things easier, and the look of pain on a student’s face as I admit that I don’t know his or her name is great motivation to getting the names down pat.
William Patrick Wend - August 24, 2009 at 5:11 pm
I’ve been substitute teaching for eight years and been decently successful at learning student’s names. On the first day I think I am going to have students introduce themselves and I will take attendance each day to help reinforce their names in my mind.
Linda Gassaway - September 2, 2009 at 12:52 am
With their permission I take a picture of each student 1st day of class. They hold a mini whiteboard in front on which they have written their name. They always have fun with it, making faces, drawing designs on their board, offer to take the pus for me etc. As term rolls on their “mug shots” show up on the blog and wiki we use when I want to point out something clever a student has done etc. I look over the pics and put faces w names.