Tip 17: Know Your Students’ Interests

One of the easiest and most effective ways to build relationships with students while teaching online is to find out their interests and hobbies. Then, refer to those interests throughout the school year, semester, or class.

Finding out your students’ interests is easy. You can ask a simple question and have them type responses into the chat to start class one day, or it can be part of a larger activity.

The real magic happens when you take that information and use it to build a relationship with the student (Ditch That Textbook, 2020). You can keep a simple list of your students’ names, along with their favorite activity, on a sheet of paper and hang it up behind your computer for easy reference (see figure 2.2).

Take any opportunity (it can be preplanned or spontaneous) that you can link to one or more of your students with something they love to do. Not only does this help make the academic content culturally responsive (see tip 79, page 125, for more on that), your students will be very impressed with your ability to instantly recall something that’s very important to them!

Sean H. Mom works at Costco, Plays Xbox with Elliot M. Mei C. Has a new puppy Josh F. Bakes sourdough bread with dad Pedro K. Loves snowboarding Elliot M. Plays Xbox with friends