Before the First Impression

Who is my teacher?

I remember reading an old study (summarized here) back in graduate school, and it has stayed with me ever since.  In the study, researchers explored how to predict teacher evaluations based on "thin slices of behavior."  In a nutshell, they showed  30 seconds of videotape with the sound off of different teachers.  Viewers saw 10 seconds each of the beginning, middle, and end of class.  Based on those silent 30 seconds, they evaluated teachers on different areas such as confidence, likability, professionalism, and so on.  They then compared those results with end of the semester evaluations of actual (and different) students.  The results were strikingly similar!  You can read Harvard magazine's summary or download the full report.  For whatever reason, that study has stuck with me years and years later, influencing me to think about the first impression I make on my students.

Today I was in my office when a student came in asking about a totally different department and teacher.  He was lost and was trying to find out how to add a class.  He told me he had dropped the class he was originally registered for because he looked online at the teacher's college directory photo and decided the teacher was "too quirky" for his tastes.  He dropped because of the the picture!  The student told me he had also scrolled through a few other teachers and if there was no photo, he searched Facebook to see if the teacher had a profile picture he could peruse.  While this student may be a bit more over-the-top than most, I'm betting he is not alone in seeking out a before-class-peek at the teacher.

I spend a lot of time with first-day activities.  I used to fret about my first 30 seconds of walking in the door. Now I'm thinking of what impression students already have in mind of me before they walk through my classroom door.  And up above?  That's my current Facebook profile picture.