Small group classes

1. Understanding your tutorials

Tutorials are usually less formal than lectures and are highly interactive. These small group sessions play a crucial role in your study experience as they are where you can more directly interact with teaching staff and your peers in a supportive environment. For example, tutorials function to:

• Clarify and hone your understanding of the subject materials through discussing readings and undertaking other activities.
• Explain and clarify your assessment tasks and academic expectations.
• Practise applying analytical and problem-solving strategies.
• Build rapport with your peers and teaching staff.
• Develop and practise your presentation and speaking skills.
• Develop your empathy and reflective practices through hearing other perspectives.
• Receive feedback on your ideas.

2. Prepare before the tutorial

Preparing for the tutorial will enhance your ability to actively contribute. To get the most out of a tutorial, you’ll need to:

• Look at the learning objectives for the tutorial - identify the key learning points.
• Ensure that you’ve attended or listened to the lecture, read the required readings, completed any set questions or quizzes on the Moodle site and any other set tasks for the tutorial.
• Think up some questions that you could raise in the tutorial to clarify your learning. For example: ask clarifications about a point from the lecture, or questions about a specific section of the readings, or explanation of a new concept.

3. Listen actively during the tutorial

Be an active listener during the tutorial – adopt an active listener state of mind, that is, listen with attention and concentration.

Be a content-oriented listener, listen for information and ideas being put forward by a group member – make notes on this content.

Listen for verbal cues like the use of keywords, signposts, repetitions, tone of voice, etc.

Look at non-verbal cues to support your active listening – that is, look at the speaker’s body language, gestures, visual aids, etc.

As an active listener, you can build your subject knowledge and also learn new and diverse ways of expressing and critiquing this knowledge.

4. Join in a discussion during the tutorial

There are several effective verbal strategies that you can apply to enhance your active participation in tutorial discussions. You can prepare some of these strategies before the tutorial so that you boost your participation confidence.

In a discussion you could agree or disagree with a group member, raise new points and link the discussion back to the weekly readings.

Additionally, you could paraphrase other group members (or the reading) by saying “In other words, you’re suggesting …” or “I think your point is …” .

You could ask open-ended questions: “What are some alternatives?” or “What changes to my report would you suggest?”

Of course, you could ask specific questions like “Could we agree on a definition of X?”.

Another way of participating is to mention a similar situation to the one under discussion – this could be drawn from the readings, observations and experiences. You could introduce this by saying “I found a similar article …” or “An example of this phenomenon would be …”.

5. Follow up after the tutorial

After the tutorial, it’s a good idea to revise your learning.

• Do you have further questions or gaps in your learning? You could follow these up with the lecturer, tutor or fellow students.
• It might be useful to research some key terms and concepts.
• You could post your questions on the subject Moodle page and start a post-tutorial discussion with fellow students.
• It may be of benefit to (re)organise your notes.
• Of course, ensure that you’ve completed all the work required for the tutorial before moving on to the next tutorial.