Compassionate Teaching

In a recent study, 85% of students said it was important that their instructors know their names, citing improved communication, performance, and attitudes toward the professor and subject matter (Cooper, et al., 2017).

• Improved outcomes through knowing names: https://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/teaching-professor-blog/importance-learning-students-names/
• Tips for learning names: https://www.unl.edu/gradstudies/current/teaching/names

Nothing says you’re being thought about quite like a random note. Choose a few students each day over the course of a couple of weeks and write down some positive feedback on a sticky note that you then give them. Tell them thank you for something, compliment them, root them on, or express how you would like to work with or talk more with them in the future. Verbal communication is great, but there is always something a little more special about a written note, no matter how informal.

• Note writing builds supportive student-teacher relationships: http://www.ajeforum.com/passing-notes-in-class-using-note-writing-to-build-compassionate-student-teacher-relationships-by-kathryn-fishman-weaver/
• Growth mindset notes: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/teacher-writes-down-inspiring-messages-on-students-desks-before-test-lifts-them-up_us_5731ef0ee4b016f37896f9c2

You don’t have to go all Anderson Cooper on them, but get to know them—really get to know them—beyond how they are doing in your class and where they sit. During office hours (perhaps provide an incentive for coming?) or in mini-conferences during down times, dig a bit. Find out where they went to high school, their hobbies, family structure, classes they are taking or struggling in, as well as their goals and dreams. Let them do all of the talking. Take a few notes and follow up with students who may be battling personal or academic issues.

• Few factors in education have a greater impact on a student’s educational experience than a caring relationship with his or her teacher: https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/caring_teacher_student_relationship
• A four-part system for getting to know your students: https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/relationship-building/

As a student, there may be nothing worse than getting a terse or one-word response to an email, or goodness gracious, no return email at all from an instructor. Students are often more comfortable expressing their thoughts, questions, and yes, excuses more passively through email than face-to-face. Is your return communication as positive as you’d like it to be? Imagine yourself as the student receiving the email…it is life affirming or life draining? Here’s a few suggestions to keeping things on the positive tip:

• Address the student by name
• Express politeness with openings and closings: Hi, hello, dear, thanks, thank you, see you in class, etc.
• Be as clear and specific as you can in answering questions and request a one-on-one meeting if the information is too complex to be relayed via email.
• Keep positive tone in emails/brief tutorial: https://www.newmediacampaigns.com/page/keeping-a-positive-tone-in-emails
• List of positive words, phrases, and empathy statements (modify for use in academia): https://www.callcentrehelper.com/the-top-25-positive-words-and-phrases-1847.htm