Effective small group teaching

Learning is a social process that occurs through interaction with others.  Effective tutorials, whether face to face or online, are characterized by a positive and pleasant atmosphere. The TA/GTA can play a key role in facilitating  a collaborative learning environment by:

• Providing a safe cooperative environment where all students are respected and where opinions can be expressed and explored honestly 
• Ensure equal participation, ie, encourage contribution from quieter students, find techniques to structure contribution from students that dominate the group
• Structuring effective groups
• Preparing students to work cooperatively – social skills, trust and team building exercises, group processing
• Helping students understand and define the task
• Ensuring that students have the knowledge, skills and resource to carry out the task
• Observing student interaction, checking progress and intervening to help groups or students having difficulty 
•  Intervening to support the use of collaborative skills and ensure participation from all group members
• Guiding group processing to ensure effectiveness
• Providing immediate feedback during the life of the group
• Tying ideas together and integrating the learning outcomes from the task into future learning
• Evaluating and giving feedback on how well students completed the task.
• Encourage contribution from quieter students via non-verbal feedback when they venture a tentative comment

Go to Clark &  Baker FOR AKO Aotearoa, 2015 "Cooperative learning made easy: A practical guide to working with tertiary student groups" for collaborative learning ideas (p. 7 onwards), group formation, dealing with problems among group members and a template for peer review.

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Time management and good questioning techniques are crucial to supporting all students in their learning

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