An Easy Way To Build Rapport Online (Or In Class)
A rapport-building strategy I wrote about several years ago for in-class learning also happens to be effective online.
And that’s saying something.
Building rapport online is tough sledding—especially when students aren't required to turn on their camera.
After all, if you can’t see your students, you don’t even know if they’re in front of their computer, let alone whether you’re making any connection with them.
It isn’t unusual for a teacher to talk and teach their heart out to a wall of blank screens.
But despite the hurdles of online teaching, there is a relationship-building strategy that still works. It’s also super easy.
So what is it?
It’s to leave short, personal notes for individual students after class has ended. They can come in several forms—email, Remind app, the Classwork tab in Google Classroom, etc..
All work well. But to be most effective, each note should meet three criteria:
Uniqueness
Avoid trite language like “good-job” and “way-to-go,” which have lost their meaning due to overuse. Now they make students feel as if they’re just another face in the crowd.
Instead, use the student’s name when addressing them and refer to something in particular they said or did.
This is very powerful because it shows you’re paying attention to them as people and individuals. Keep a look out for anything out of the ordinary, anything you could only say to them—and then seize it.
Specificity
Specificity is the key to finding the most influential words to put in your message. Focus on things your students would never in a million years think anyone would notice.
You don’t have to write paragraphs.
Keep your missives brief and simple, but make them distinct. Refer to talents your students possess or success characteristics you see in them that they themselves may be unaware of.
Discerning and honing in on these gifts is one of the keys to unlocking intrinsic motivation.
Honesty
Kids these days are more aware than we think and can identify a phony from a mile away. So whatever you write in your note, make sure it’s honest.
Make sure it reflects what you really see in them or their work.
In this way, you build your reputation as someone who can be trusted—which is crucial to having influential, behavior-changing relationships with even the most challenging students.
If you fudge, even a little, eventually they’ll find you out.
Something More
Notes connect, encourage, and praise in a way that enliven a love of learning and keep students heading in the right direction. But because of the pandemic, this simple, even primitive, way of communicating has taken on a new level of importance.
If you’ve never met your students in person, or even seen them over Zoom, it’s the only way to start building genuine individual rapport.
This generation, world-weary and jaded in so many ways even before Covid, shrug in the face of flattery and compliments that made students blush not ten years ago.
Nowadays, it takes something more—your awareness, perception, and curiosity about your students—as well as their trust in the veracity of your words—to get through to who they really are.
To reach their quintessence.
And stir the vast potential awaiting within.
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