Sicurious has a good post here about getting to know your professors. It is interesting, how in a big class I know the people who are having problems, as it is obvious when someone’s grasp is tenuous and you speak to them, and I know the eager folks, the ones who interact and who visit in office hours. There are plenty of people though, who make me realize that I’m bad with names, as I had the names attached to totally different faces when I pass exams back and forth. These are the ones under the radar, doing well enough that they don’t need counselling, yet are self-effacing enough that I don’t know them.
Seminar classes are different. With ten students, if I don’t know their names after the first week or so, I’m falling down on the job. But with a large section in a darkened lecture hall? That’s hard.
