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.


video icon.png 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.