We spent a lot of time at the last Chautauqua workshop on classroom management talking about the importance of learning students' names, even if you aren't good at remembering these. Phil Gerbyshak has some great tips that could be adapted to the classroom by using the acronym, READ.
REPEAT. Repeat the name back to the student as soon as you hear it.
EXAMINE. Do you know of someone else with that name? Or if it's a unique name, "try to see yourself spelling or writing the name down on a piece of paper." Phil says he actually types it in his mind as that helps him remember it.
ASK. If you've never heard of the name, ask how they got the name. My own name is an old family name from a great-great grandfather.
DELIVER. Deliver the person by using their name and something about the person. I like to ask students on the first day to share something about themselves that will help me remember them. I still remember the student who told me that "everyone in her family had red hair including the cat!"
I would say another tip would be to decide that learning names is important to you and thus a skill you intend to develop.
Or... better yet... just admit that you stink at remembering names (my first night admission), take their pictures with a digital camera as you are taking attendance the first night, and then quiz yourself on your own time so you're not saying "hey you, the one with the green hair... yeah" half way into the semester.
Posted by: Timothy Johnson | July 24, 2006 at 11:44 AM
I had a grad school professor "back in the day" that would take pictures (before the digital age) of each of his students. He then memorized name and picture.
Knowing names and making the effort to make that connection with me as a student had a tremendous payoff.
One, I felt valued by the teacher and found myself working harder than for other teachers.
Two, since I was paying for my grad school tuition (borrowing the dollars actually and going into debt) I wanted to get maximum value.
Paying attention to learning my name meant a lot!
Posted by: Michael Wagner | July 24, 2006 at 12:16 PM