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.

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

Scenario: They asked me a question and I didn’t know the answer – how embarrassing!

There are times when a student asks a question that you don’t know the answer to. If you have done adequate preparation for the class, you have no reason to be embarrassed – there are always limits to your knowledge and you can’t be expected to know everything. What to do in this situation? Be honest about it and offer to:

Find out the answer for the student and clarify the answer in the next session.
Go and ask another TA/GTA in the class.
Recommend appropriate readings, or a person who is likely to know the answer (eg, the course coordinator or lecturer).
Find out with the student on the spot and learn together.
Do this task in a small group of students to find the answer and compare notes on the different approaches. This is a good way of collectively working on a problem and learn from each other and encourages peer to peer and student teacher interactions.