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Advice on core module tutorials
For more information contact:
Toby Hall.
Tutorial questionnaires are circulated in each of the core modules
around week 3 or 4 of the semester, so that any problems with tutorial
groups can be rectified early on. The main message from these
questionnaires is always positive: students very much appreciate these
tutorials, and their main requests are to have more of them, longer,
and in other modules too.
However, there are some more negative comments which come up
routinely, and these are reflected in the advice below (most of which
is very obvious!).
Time management
- Don't spend too much time on easier questions at the expense of
harder ones (but don't ignore the easier ones either, particularly
if students in your group are relatively weak).
- Ask students which questions they've found most difficult, and
concentrate on those. (It's worth impressing on students that
tutorials are much more valuable if they've attempted the problems
beforehand.)
- Make sure you look at the problems before the tutorial in
enough detail that you're not wasting students time during it.
- Students like it when we go over common mistakes in their
solutions on the previous week's work, but not when we spend too
long doing it.
- Similarly, they like a brief summary of the main ideas/results
which will be used in that week's work.
- Tutorials mustn't overrun. Students may have a lecture
immediately afterwards.
Treating students gently
- Don't say that things are trivial - even though they are.
- Don't assume that students know how to do all of the problems
when they arrive - many don't, and they come to the tutorials to get
help.
- Most tutors think it beneficial to ask students to solve
problems at the board. Students don't seem to mind doing this,
provided that the atmosphere is friendly and there isn't too much
compulsion. They find it very unpleasant to be singled out to solve
a problem when they don't know how to. They also don't like it when
the tutorial is entirely taken up with students solving problems, so
they get relatively little input from the tutor.
Other
- Try to use the same method as the lecturer (as given, for
example, in the model solutions).
- If the mark you return to students is 1 or 2 out of 2, give
them an alphabetical grade too so they have some idea of how well
they're doing.