Winthrop Conference on Teaching and Learning

Building Student-Student Rapport: You know their names, but do they know theirs?

DiGiorgio Campus Center 223

While knowing one’s students is often emphasized in discussing teaching strategies, we feel it also necessary for students to know each other. Student-student rapport is not frequently emphasized, and the majority of existing research focuses more on teacher-student rapport. In establishing student-student rapport in our classes, we find ourselves drawing on research from other fields where there is a recent and burgeoning interest in and emphasis on team-building. We find this existing research valuable and inarguably applicable to the way we teach. Our common pedagogical goals led to more discussion and a further analysis of how we work to create student-student and teacher-student rapport in a dance technique class, as well as why we believe it is a necessary component of our teaching. Establishing student-student rapport is beneficial in any educational classroom. Our presentation will include a summary of existing research on the topic, a history of our efforts to establish student-student rapport, and a discussion of the techniques we have found useful in helping students engage with one another. We will also discuss the benefits and make the argument that spending time helping students get to know each other will reap great benefits in the end.