Six Strategies for Learning Students’ Names Quickly:
- A common strategy is to take photos of students wearing name tags on the first day of class and then create flashcards to practice outside of class time.
- Create rhymes to aid your auditory and visual memory: “Fred eats monkey bread.”
- When students tell you their names, say it back to them and confirm that your pronunciation is correct.
- Identify a unique physical feature and then think of a funny sentence involving that feature and the student’s name: “Tim has a tiny tooth.”
- Have students on the first day form into teams of two and interview their partners about favorite family rituals, hobbies, what they’re proud of, where they plan to be in ten years, and how they plan to get there. Then individuals introduce their partners by name to the class and synthesize what they learned.
- Use name tents until names are learned.
Here is a another suggestion from one our faculty “FYI, I have students turn in photos and tape them on my door to look at and memorize.”
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