 Did you know that doing a get-to-know-you survey with your students can dramatically improve their grades? Researchers at Harvard University surveyed 315 year-9 students and 25 of their teachers at the start of a school year They did a 30-item get-to-know-you survey and this wasn't about personal information But it was actually preferred preferences and interests so things like preferred sporting events to engage with or the most important quality in a friend the researchers then Cherry picked that information to create a summary of those similarities to give to each teacher and student and Then they came back five weeks later and did a second more in-depth survey to find out about how their relationships had changed What they found was that when the teachers and students know that they have at least five things in common their Relationships and educational outcomes both improve so The differences was that teachers reported they had more frequent conversations with the students about things outside of the classwork They teachers knew about the similarities rated their relationships with their students better and the students grades actually improved So for some students within this program, they actually experienced a 65 percent increase to their grades Just over this one term that this survey was conducted So when you're thinking about trying this in your classroom if you haven't already do I get to know activity Understand the backgrounds of your students so that you can have conversations outside of the classroom work This is particularly important to be able to engage your students right at the class when you're trialing a flipped classroom approach Because they're going to come in and probably be a little bit uncertain with the new structure So having a conversation about the sporting match on the weekend that they're interested in Or many other aspects can dramatically improve the relationships you have with their students and ease in to that classroom