First Day of Online Teaching: Part 3

Author: Arlene Vinion Dubiel

The first blog of this series on the first day of online teaching focused on building relationships by getting to know your students and letting them get to know you. This blog extends that idea to help all your students feel welcome in your class, even if it is online. 

With an in-person class, I try to make my students feel welcome by doing three things at the very beginning of the first day. One, I introduce myself and tell students what they may call me. Two, I allow students to introduce themselves to the class. Three, I hand out index cards and have students write their name and other information that can be useful for me. Why do I begin this way and how can I do it in an online classroom? 

What do your students call you? 

What you allow your students to call you can set the tone for the class by establishing authority or collegiality. Make clear to your students how they should address you both in person and in messages. This helps to avoid awkward or inaccurate salutations like “Professor,” “Ms.,” or the ever popular “Hey.”  

With my professional name being uncommon and hyphenated, I have thought a lot about what I allow students to call me and it varies depending on my purpose and on the students’ level. I begin with my professional name and title, Dr. Arlene Vinion-Dubiel, to establish my credentials. Then, I will say, “You are welcome to call me…”. High school students call me Dr. Dubiel to maintain authority in managing the classroom. Undergraduates call me Dr. D. which establishes authority with the title, but is informal enough that students feel comfortable talking in class. I encourage graduate students to call me by my first name, Arlene, as collegial relationships are ideal for adult students. To emphasize how students should address me, I close all correspondence with this chosen name. As a result, no students have yet addressed me as “Hey.” 

Students’ names

We all take attendance on the first day of class. However, it is not necessary to use the class roster to call out students’ given and legal names. Rather let your students introduce themselves in their own words and with their own chosen name. Doing this rather than calling out names helps to make students feel welcome and helps you to learn students’ names and how to correctly pronounce them. 

In 2015, the Chronicle for Higher Education published an article and video on what LGBTQ students want their teachers to know. Calling out students’ given names from a class roster often establishes gender. This can be uncomfortable particularly for students who are transgendered. With our various ethnic, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds in the United States, it can be a challenge to pronounce students’ names without first hearing them. My Name, My Identity is a national campaign that places a premium on pronouncing students' names correctly and thus valuing diversity. As the motto says “By pronouncing students’ names correctly, you can foster a sense of belonging and build positive relationships in the classroom, which are crucial for healthy social, psychological, and educational outcomes.” 

When allowing student introductions in an online classroom, first check what supports are in place with your learning management systems (LMS). It may be possible for students to change their public profiles, adding a picture and providing their chosen name instead of their given name. Check with your school to see if this is a possibility and if there is a tutorial to share with your students. If you are able to have a synchronous session, most LMS will display participants’ names in alphabetical order. Ask students to introduce themselves when their name is next on the list. Listen to how students say their name, repeating it if necessary and asking if you are pronouncing it correctly. Check out the Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning at Yale University for some additional tips for learning and using students’ names, including ideas for classes of 50 or more students. 

It’s all in the cards

In an in person class, I hand everyone an index card and have them write the name they want to be called by in large letters on one side of the card. On the other side, they write their given name and responses to general questions that may help me to get to know them. In the online environment, I will create these cards myself from students’ information found in their introductory paragraphs or videos. 

These cards help me to learn about my students. I use them as a study tool linking preferred names and pronunciations to given names found in the class roster. By including some personal information, I can better remember students’ names. For example, Dylan plays D&D, Sarai (Sa-ra-ee, soft r) is the only science major, and Harper is from my same town. While these cards are a good study tool, they are most useful for class management. 

If I want to select students to respond to a question or a discussion prompt, I will pull a card from the stack. Then I can set the ‘used’ cards aside ensuring that all students are chosen equally. The cards are used to create student work groups. When in class or on video, the students see that the cards are shuffled and grouped at random. This reduces student complaints about group placement or about being called on unfairly because they see it is by the cards. 

Sharing and using preferred names is the first step to building positive classroom relationships, even online. Cards with students’ names and some introductory information can help you get to know your students. The cards can also help you select and group students fairly. While these tips work for in-person classes, with a little tweaking, they will work for the online class as well. 

In the first blog of this series, I shared ideas for building relationships with students when faced with online teaching. A recent blog from Flower Darby published in the Chronicle for Higher Education provides some additional ideas. Check it out for additional perspectives on connecting with students when teaching online: 5 Ways to Connect with Online Students. 

Tell students how they should address you. Allow students to introduce themselves and make every effort to learn and use your students’ preferred names, spelling and pronouncing them correctly to help them feel welcome in your class.  

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