One of the most important priorities for any teacher early in the school year is to get to know the names of their students quickly. This will help establish a disciplined class room environment which is conducive to learning.
Below, I have listed many strategies you could adopt to help you to get to know your students rapidly. What you need to do as a young teacher is to take from the list those strategies that you feel you can implement easily. Now, you must plan how and when you are going to use them. When writing your lesson plan, ensure that you include which strategies you are going to use. At the end of the lesson, review how successful you were in using those strategies.
At the end of this discussion, there is a test for you to try to ascertain how successful you have been in learning the names of your students.
Here are my 16 strategies:
1. When you mark the class roll at the beginning of the lesson in the first week, have the student raise his/her hand for you to see. Alternatively, have the student stand in his/her place.
2. Have a seating plan.
3. Use your room plan for roll marking.
4. Use your class seating plan to ask questions of different students you name.
5. Use your seating plan to get to know the talkative, inattentive or disruptive student early, as well as those who might need extra help.
6. Read the record cards of each student in your class.
7. Ensure you read the school medical lists.
8. When a student asks you a question in class, ask them to tell you their name. Suggest that this will help all the students in the class to get to know each other's names quickly.
9. Have a photo of each student. (Check school policy on this issue first.)
10. Checking homework and bookwork with each student at your desk is another way to get to know your class.
11. Younger classes in primary school will accept name tags.
12. Every time you speak to a child, use their name at least twice, at the beginning and at the end of the conversation.
13. Personally hand back practice tests to the student saying their name each time.
14. The early formal tests should be returned personally to each child at your desk where you can make comments and make greater contact with the students.
15. When you go on playground duty or just walking around the school, say hello to the students you know using their names.
16. Another fun idea a little later in Term One is to ask the class to sit anywhere and you try to put a name to each child. This will prove you are human and can laugh at yourself.
Here is the simple test:
1. Stand up in your room where you can see all your class.
2. Look around the class and select a student.
3. Test your memory by deciding that student's name.
4. Using that student's name, ask a question.
5. Check to see if the person answering the question is, in fact, the person you thought it ought to be.
6. Do this without using your seating plan.
7. Now, once you are confident that you know who is who, try strategy 16.
Rick Boyce has taught for over forty-five years. During his last fifteen years he was the Head of Mathematics in a large Australian school. There, he gained a reputation as an innovator in the teaching of Mathematics and as a presenter of professional development for teachers.
This article is a small taste of what the young teacher can expect to find in an eBook titled, "The First Year Teacher's Book".