Building Instructor-Student Connections by Learning Student Names

by Andrea Follmer, CTE Director and professor of psychology
 
In his keynote at this year’s Teaching Summit,  Peter Felton emphasized the importance of learning students’ names.  Not only does learning names build positive student-instructor relationships, Felton said, but it helps create an inclusive and engaging class climate.

Indeed, research shows that students who perceive that their instructor knows their names feel more valued and more invested in the class.  They also feel more comfortable seeking help because they believe that their instructor cares about them.

For many of us, though, this is easier said than done. As a psychological scientist who has studied both the feats and frailties of human memory and has taught courses that enroll hundreds of students, I understand quite well that remembering students’ names can be a daunting task. While it may not be possible to remember all of your students’ names, a little effort early in the semester can make a real difference. So here are some practical strategies that are based in the science of memory and that draw on creative and thoughtful approaches developed by KU faculty. 

1. Find out what your students want to be called. Rather than simply reading off your roster, invite your students to tell you what name and pronouns they would like you to use, and encourage them to share pronunciation guidance. (Pronunciation websites can help students learn the phonetic spelling of their name and assist others in pronunciation.)  If you are unsure how to say someone’s name, ask them to help you say it correctly. Names are a part of our identities, and trying to pronounce names correctly shows that you value students enough to make the effort.
2. Use external aids to help you encode students’ names into memory. During class time, use seating charts, name tags, name tents on desks, or an annotated version of your photo roster. These aids can make it easier for you to use students’ names during class interactions, which, according to Felton, is almost as beneficial as remembering them. Alternatively, ask students to submit index cards, “trading cards” (as in baseball, or Pokémon), slides, or video introductions so you can review and practice names outside of class. You can also create a single video of students saying their names as they leave class.
3. Use chunking and organization. Humans have a limited capacity to process information, and you most likely have a limited amount of time to devote to this task. So try learning names in small chunks, focusing on a few students at a time. Get to class early and work on the names of students who are already in the classroom. During class activities or breaks, choose an area of the classroom and work on the names of students in that area. If you have students working in groups, make a seating chart and focus on learning all the names in one group at a time. This approach can also help you organize the information into categories, a strategy that makes information more meaningful, and therefore more memorable.
4. Elaborate and form associations. Repeating students’ names can help you keep them active in your mind, but connecting names to other meaningful information is even more helpful in the long term. This is where the note cards, trading cards, videos or annotated rosters can really come in handy. Work on connecting students’ names to their personal interests or other characteristics, such as hometown, interests, activities, or perhaps even better, the story of their name. Creating a richer representation and network of associations around the students and their identities will aid you in later retrieving their names from memory while also enabling you to show your students that you value them as individuals.
5. Practice recalling names, and then practice some more.  Once you have learned some of your students’ names, use them as much as you can. Retrieval practice, or repeatedly reactivating or calling information to mind, is a powerful strategy for strengthening memory. Nonetheless, the timing of retrieval practice matters; 150 years of research on memory decay has demonstrated that the most dramatic forgetting occurs shortly after original learning. What does this mean? If you wait too long to practice recalling students’ names after learning them, your memories might have faded so much that you simply draw a blank. So try practicing with a subset of your students a couple of class periods in a row, or at the beginning and end of class. Nonetheless, if you have forgotten a name or two or more, don’t fret. The well-documented “savings effect” means that information is much easier to relearn than it is to learn from scratch. So if you are unsure of a name, or have forgotten how to pronounce it, just ask for clarification. In all likelihood, you will be able to relearn the names in much less time.

Learning your students’ names doesn’t have to take over your life, or all of your class time. Just a small amount of time before and during each class period, especially early in the semester, can go a long way toward helping you create an inclusive and motivating climate in your class.

One final note: Not all students have experience with or are immediately comfortable with being addressed by name in a class. This includes students who have expectations of anonymity in college courses (especially large courses) or students from cultures in which it is less common for instructors to address students by name. Transparency about the reasons for name learning – to build community in class and to help the instructor get to know students – may be particularly important for students who are less familiar with these approaches.