Tip 14: Help Students Get to Know Your Stories

There are few things more memorable than a great story. When we tell stories about our experiences or struggles or the situations we’ve encountered, we make ourselves much more memorable to our students. And we accelerate their ability to get to know us, thereby strengthening the relationship (Jarzabek, 2020).

Our stories don’t need to be stories of epic proportions or heroics—sometimes the best stories are those that are humbling or trivial but honest, authentic, and real. In an online environment, students want to know who that teacher on the other side of the screen is, and every time we tell them a story about ourselves, that person becomes more real and more relatable.

In addition, if you can link a story with the academic content the students are learning, even better. My own children still talk about their online science teacher, who, while teaching about spiders, told them about the time he killed one of the world’s deadliest spiders (the Brazilian wandering spider, to be exact). The students joyfully repeat how their teacher doesn’t like to kill any animals, but this spider’s venom can paralyze a human in five seconds, so he had to smash it!

After you tell a few stories, you can even use an online poll feature (such as the poll feature in Zoom, or Poll Everywhere) to ask students to vote on their “favorite (fill in your name) story from the past month.” Not only will this reinforce the stories you’ve been telling, but it also reinforces the relationship you’re building with your students.

And of course, taking the time to hear your students’ stories (whether in spoken words or in writing) will help you see your students as the amazing people they are—far more than little boxes onscreen!