I need some advice and shared skills for running tutorials.

I am given a list of questions, which the students also have and have two hours to fill.
There is about 20 in the group so I have been setting them off in groups then go round and basically find they are giving really rubbish/wrong answers and haven't done any reading, I try and correct them and get them to speak about more appropriate issues then move on to the next group, meanwhile I know most of the groups are drifting on to talking about "other things".

I'd like advice from people who have run these kind of tutorials to what should be happening and what works. Where I did my undergrad tutorials were two or three students with a lecturer, and you dare not turn up unprepared as you were expected to participate, so it is hard to deal with this sort of situation - But I want to do my best and make sure the students get the most out of it.

My fellow tutor on the course is an old hand a teaching fellow who takes the questions and essentially delivers a lecture, and I know this is not how it should be...


Thanks for any pointers!

If they aren't doing the reading you could try some sort of entry ticket system. You might ask them to write down the 3 key arguments from each reading - if they don't produce it, then they can't stay in the seminar (emphasise the unfairness of them free-riding on more conscientous students). You could then make your first group activity to compare their answers and come up with a joint three to report back to the whole group. Whoever thought two hour seminars for undergrads was a good idea was mad but I think the key is to plan plenty of short activities to break up the time and keep them concentrated. If you have the technology, short relevant youTube films can be useful to do this. Don't set your face completely against lecturing - a ten minute talk in the middle might not be a bad idea (particularly if they are off track and you need to reorient them) and you need to sum up the session at the end. You also probably need to give them a 5 minute break in the middle. Basically, variety in my experience is best - I teach politics and we use role-playing simulations quite a bit for longer sessions - it tends to go down well but might be impossible in your discipline.
The other thing that it might be a good idea to do is to ask your supervisor, who in the dept is the known brilliant small group teacher and see if you could observe one of his/her sessions. I learnt a lot that way. A google search for small group teaching and your subject area will also probably generate useful ideas. Hope this helps a bit.

Wow Bewildered, that's a great answer. I will be running tutorials this semester with 1st years but in a topic WAY WAY out of my comfort zone. tbh I feel I will only be about 10 minutes ahead of them at times so I have been wondering how to structure them.

Hi Puddleduck! I do quite a lot of teaching so can empathise! Would agree with bewildered - its about instilling a culture where preparation is expected - this can take a bit of time tho - what I did was to spend some time at the start of the seminar, randomly picking people and asking them to say something about what they had read that week - after a while social pressure usually means people start to come prepared. Also agree lots of short actvities - maybe ask them to prepare and do quick fire presentations on different aspects of the topic or on different questions, give lots of flipcharts etc and encourage to be creative...Or get them to prepare for two sides of a debate on a question to do with the topic...Or the use of a case study as a discussion focus can work - again depends on your area...It might sound a bit group worky (I teach social policy and social work) but I also found doing a ground rules exercise in the first seminar can help - if the group comes up with their own rules its easier for them to stick to them, so e.g. being prepared and willing to contribute. I found sometimes I had to accept as well that some groups had a better dynamic than others and that at the end of the day the seminar is a forum where it is up to them to make the most of it - found this made me feel a bit less stressed and anxious. Good luck with it!

I have a few groups like this. Its uni policy that we cannot ask them to leave either, so you can give them a hard time, but it means you get 70% of a class not bothering which is annoying.

at the mo I'm told what to do in the seminars by the module head - I've decided to ignore this. E.g. there is a 'discussion session' coming up next week. I KNOW some of the groups will just sit in silence for 50 mins, no matter how many prompts/group tasks I give them. So I'm going to make up a little pretend character and get them to apply the theory to it instead and report back on what they thought of the theory - rather than discuss its merits in a debate format (which even I think is DULL) - so basically I get them to pretend they are mini-consultants. I am in business studies though, so quite easy to practical-application of things.

apols Puddleduck for gatecrashing your thread, although it is related:p

Where I'm at, each student goes to just two tutorials a semester which are quite a few weeks apart. I would really appreciate any ideas for these, given that I won't get to know them over the term.

Are the groups big Ady? YOu could try some kind of revision session about what they've learnt so far - could be in the form of a quiz, or them making posters and then presenting them.

the normal of about 15-20 students. Good for me in that I can repeat so less prep but I am finding it difficult to think of ways to make them enjoyable - are tutorials supposed to be enjoyable???? I can think of things for the second meeting but for the first one, I'm a bit stuck!

I think the 'enjoyableness' is up for debate. I hunger for approval lol so I like them to be enjoyable (e.g. I sometimes hand out sweeties etc.) but I recently spoke to someone more senior who told me "the minute you focus on making it enjoyable it becomes a farce and there's no learning" - not sure I agree with that really.

not sure if enjoyable is necessarily the word all right but I do think they should be different from lectures which incidentally I am also giving. So they're the tutorials of my own module. The quiz idea might work or at least some version of it. I didn't just want to set readings and then drag it out of them. If they don't engage those sort of tutorial sessions can seem reallllllly long:-(

I taught weekly tutorials last semester. I found after the first couple of weeks hardly anyone had done the reading, so I planned the session with that in mind. I'd divide them into small groups and give each group a small part of the reading (maybe 2 pages) to look at and then summarise or answer questions on for the rest of the group. This did mean there was sometimes 15 or so minutes when they were all reading, and were frighteningly quiet! I'd either read the papers myself, wandered round the groups to check they understood, or a couple weeks brought my laptop and sat there on facebook :$ When I planned the session I wanted them to work together, to discuss in small groups what they had read themselves or remembered from the lecture. One of my groups was really good at that and seemed very engagaed, whereas my other classes did not seem to 'get' group work and tended to sit and read in silence and then make individual notes!

I'd try and include some whole class discussion of the topic either at the start or end (or both). Though you do find with that there are always some students who just will not join in. Again it's anazing how different groups dynamics can be, two of my three groups we'd get a good discussion going, sometimes going off the point a bit, but generally working well. My third group were like getting blood from a stone!

I also used start the session with some kind of warm up exersize to try and get students used to talking to the whole class. First session I got them to introduce themself then tell the class what they had for dinner last night/ favouritve TV show or something like that. I'm sure some of the students thought it a bit lame, but it broke the ice telling them my favourite TV show was Hollyoaks!

That's really helpful Catalinbond, or should I say Dr. Bond! and thanks so much also Socpol, Sneaks and Bewildered, really interesting ideas - all your sessions sound interesting, lucky students (up)

What I've done (and will be doing in 50 minutes) is split the group into groups of 4-5 that they remain in the entire semester long. I then have one person each week presenting to the rest of their little group (so 4 people presenting for a 20 person seminar) and have numbered assigned readings (which they do alongside the core reading) for each person in the group (i.e. I've got a reading list numbered 1-5 and each person in a group has a number 1-5 - gives a bit more variety to the reading).

My seminars basically start with the presentations (which finish at different times, so you need a "plate-spinning" question to ask the groups that finish early), then I draw them together with a bit of board work (I love mind maps, they seem to make students less intimidated about talking) before maybe a little bit more group work and then launching into a whole group discussion. The beauty of this seminar design is if you burn through your prepped questions because you're getting a lot of silence you can slow the seminar down by throwing in group work while you think of what to cover next.

I would like less structure, but hey, it's better than sitting in silence.