Tutoring: a Guide to
Getting Started
Teaching Development | Wāhanga Whakapakari Ako
Dorothy Spiller
Teaching Development| Wāhanga Whakapakari Ako
February 2010
Tutoring: a guide to getting
started
1. Introduction
Learning in small groups is a well established
part of the tradition of universities in the British
and North American traditions. While the
advent of on-line learning has seen some of the
functions of the small group transferred to online settings, tutorials still remain an integral
part of the learning experience of most students.
The specific goals of tutorials will vary
considerably according to the discipline and the
place of tutorials in the teaching of the whole
course. Correspondingly, the expectations of the
tutor can be quite different from one subject to
the next. This booklet and the associated
workshop examines some of the more generic
features of tutoring and offers broad guidelines
and strategies. You will need to adapt these
generic ideas to your own context and
discipline, liaise with your course convenor and
co-tutors and respond in an ongoing way to the
needs of your particular students.
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2. Purposes of small group learning
and the role of the tutor
Some of the purposes for small group learning
are:
 To provide an opportunity for students to
engage in a more personal way with course
learning
 To enable students to clarify course concepts
or theories
 To clarify course and assessment procedures
and expectations
 To provide a
comfortable informal
environment in which
students can articulate
their understanding of a
discipline
 To provide an
environment in which
students can develop
confidence in relation to
their grasp of an
academic discipline
 To give students a
chance to apply course
theories or concepts
 To promote deeper
learning through exposure to a range of
perspectives
 To encourage the development of critical
thinking through exposure to a range of
perspectives
 To provide an environment in which students
can practise discipline-specific academic
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TUTORING: A GUIDE TO GETTING STARTED • TDU
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requirements and skills and get feedback on
their progress
To enable academic teachers to get feedback
on the progress of student learning
To give feedback to students on their learning
To develop skills of collaborative learning
To create a learning community
Task
Identify those goals which you see to be most
pertinent for your context
From the following list tick those qualities
which you think best describe your role as a
tutor:
 Facilitator
 Clarifier
 Knowledge transmitter
 Nurturer
 Pastoral care provider
 Organiser
 Content clarifier
 Relationship builder
 Team work manager
 Skills developer
 Synthesiser
 Co-learner
 Conduit to lecturer
Compare your views with those of the other
tutors in your subject (or related subject). What
are the implications of your views for the ways
in which you go about your practice?
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Getting started – establishing the
classroom environment
The small group is potentially the place where
students can become most engaged with their
learning. However, a critical factor in the success
of small group teaching is that students need to
feel comfortable in the environment so that they
will participate willingly and grow in confidence.
A vital part of a tutor’s role is therefore managing
the dynamics of the classroom and promoting
positive tutor - student relationships as well as
good relationships amongst the students. Ongoing
attentiveness to these dynamics will help both
tutor and students in every other aspect of the
learning process. Here are some ideas that will
help in the relationship dimension of tutoring:
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TUTORING: A GUIDE TO GETTING STARTED • TDU
 Make an effort to learn students’ names and
encourage students to address each other by
name.
 Create non-threatening opportunities for every
student to contribute to each class
 Include a fun element in each tutorial
 Invite people to talk about their backgrounds
and experience
 Use a range of examples to include students
from different backgrounds and invite students
to bring in examples from their own cultures
 Try to arrange seating so that people can see
and talk to each other easily
 Arrive early and wait after the tutorial to
encourage students to approach you
individually
 Give students your University email address
so that they can contact you
 Model behaviours that promote trust and
respect. These include attentive listening,
punctuality, being well prepared, not
interrupting or putting people down and not
being racist or sexist. Your behaviours help to
establish the tenor of the classroom.
 Work with students to establish an agreement
about how the class will function.
 Be explicit about goals and expectations
 Make the learning outcomes and the session
agenda explicit
 Get regular informal feedback on what is
happening for the students
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 Provide helpful feedback to students on oral
and written work so they know how they can
improve their work
 Model the skills required in the subject
Encouraging student participation
One of the most recurrent concerns voiced by
tutors is that students don’t contribute willingly to
discussion. It is important to recognise that there
are personal and cultural differences which make
it more or less comfortable for people to
participate and that participation can take
different forms. It is unrealistic to expect all
students to be vocal in the same way and to the
same degree and some less vocal students may in
fact be participating effectively. The best a tutor
can do is to create a range of ways and
opportunities for people to participate and
gradually build student motivation and
confidence to be involved. There are both teacher
strategies and student activities that can help in
this process
Tutor-led discussions
Possibly the most important way in which tutors
can promote discussion is through the personal
characteristics that they display and the classroom
environment that they establish and maintain.
These aspects of the tutor’s role were
outlined in the previous section.
Brookfield and Preskill (1999)
suggest that there are three key
components to the way in which the
tutor manages the discussion,
listening, responding and
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TUTORING: A GUIDE TO GETTING STARTED • TDU
questioning. The tutor uses these three
behaviours to elicit ideas and understanding, help
the students to connect different aspects and
gradually weave them together into an integrated
whole and an enhanced understanding. In order to
facilitate this process effectively, the tutor needs
to be well prepared in the particular subject of the
session. While tutors are not expected to be
experts, they need to be well prepared so that they
are equipped to respond to the range of responses
that students bring in, maximise contributions and
make connections between them. In addition to
this content preparation, tutors need to be
personally and emotionally present in the
classroom so that they can be alert to the sub-text
of students’ offerings and the dynamics of the
conversation.
Skillful questioning is a key
component in eliciting responses
and developing a discussion.
Brookfield and Preskill (1999)
identify a number of different
types of questions.
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Type
Use
Example
Open
Questions that explore and idea or
topic and do not require a right or
wrong answer.
Many students do not seem to like
participating in discussion; what
possible explanation could there be for
this?
Clarifying
The questions ask for further
explanation.
Can you put that point in another
way?
Could you explain the term that you
have just used?
Can you elaborate on that point a bit
further?
Evidence
Students are invited to provide
further evidence to back up a
response.
Can you provide an example of that
attitude from the chapter?
Can you illustrate that point with an
everyday example?
Do you have data to support that
position?
Application
Students are invited to apply their
knowledge to different contexts or
to practical situations.
How could these theories be applied
to the workplace?
Connecting
These questions invite students to
consider relationships between
ideas.
How does this observation relate to
last week’s discussion?
What common themes can you see
merging in these articles? How does
your point connect with Mary’s point?
Is there any contradiction between
this idea and the previous one?
Hypothetical
These are the “what if” questions
that invited students to think
laterally.
What would have happened if Hitler
had defeated Britain?
How would Mill on the Floss have
been a different novel if Maggie had
married Phillip?
Cause and
Effect
Students are invited to think about What impact might it have on student
possible cause and effect
tutorial contributions if the tutor left
relationships.
the class altogether?
Summary or
Synthesis
Students are invited to bring
together their ideas from a
particular session.
(Based on Brookfield & Preskill, 1999, p.68-72)
What is the most significant lesson
that you learn about being a tutor
today?
Task
Work with someone from your discipline to write
examples of these different types of questions
Student Activities
There are numerous activities that you can design
to encourage students to engage more actively in
their learning. Many of the strategies involve
breaking the class up into smaller groups.
Examples include:
 Group work on assigned parts of the topic.
Group members may be allocated particular
roles. (Students report back or tutor collects
group contributions on oht and makes copies
for the class).
 Working in pairs.
 Rounds – tutor goes round the class asking for
a point or comment from each student.
 Peer learning – students teach each other in
pairs or small groups.
 Visuals (for example, posters
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or logos representing an idea
or a concept). Student groups
can be asked to depict an
idea or concept visually.
Role plays
Periods of silence or
reflection when students are
asked to consider a particular question or
point.
Quotes from a reading that students pick out of
a hat and link to the topic.
Debates.
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 Various forms of quizzes (students in teams).
 In class writing. Students do short pieces of
writing in class, for example, one or two
sentences arguing for or against a proposition,
or an outline of the steps that they might take
in approaching a problem.
 Tutorial preparation exercises. This could be a
problem to attempt, a case to analyse, a set of
contentious statements to respond to,
answering focus questions on a reading, taking
a stance in relation to a reading. These
exercises should be integral to the course
objectives and in keeping with the assessment
approach, so that they are of value to the
students).
 Pre-tutorial exercises done on-line
 Mini-presentations
 Post-its – teacher introduces the idea – pupils
individually (or in pairs) put two related ideas
on post-its and put them up on the wall
See Habeshaw, Habeshaw and Gibbs (1984),
Exley and Dennick (2004), Tiberius (1995) and
Davies (1999) for a comprehensive selection of
student activities that may align with your
particular context and learning outcomes.
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TUTORING: A GUIDE TO GETTING STARTED • TDU
5. Common concerns and some
strategies
Students who talk too much
Most tutors are familiar with students who for a
range of reasons are inclined to talk too much and
make other students feel that they are unable to
participate in the discussion. This does not mean
that tutors should cut off every person who talks
at some length, especially when the comments are
making a constructive or useful contribution to
the discussion. The tutor needs to make a case by
case decision about what can be said to be talking
too much. Brookfield and Preskill (1999) provide
a helpful rule of thumb for making this
assessment:
A member of a discussion group is talking too
much when others in the group feel consistently
that they are denied the opportunity to speak
(p.135).
The feelings of the rest of the class in this respect
can be gauged from their behaviours, such as
their body language or engaging in side
conversations, or from their comments in regular
anonymous written feedback.
There are a number of strategies for dealing with
students who talk too much. These include:
 Using small groups and assigning roles to
group members
 Developing guidelines about discussion
process that become part of the class
agreement.
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 Tutors modelling good practices such as not
interrupting or talking over people and not
dominating the session with their own talk.
 Using periods of reflective silence when
students write down a response and then
getting feedback from students who haven’t
spoken before.
 Using exercises like rules for conversation –
for example, not being allowed to speak again
until two more people have spoken or only
being allowed to talk about others’ ideas
(Brookfield & Preskill, 1999).
 Using structured activities
like debates.
If these measures do not help,
the tutor may need to talk
privately with the student.
Students who talk too little
There are many reasons why
some students are reluctant to contribute to
discussions. These include personality factors,
negative past experiences, fear of looking foolish,
lack of preparation, personal circumstances,
feeling uncomfortable in class, reliance on
teacher authority and lack of reward for
participation. In addition, some people need more
reflection time and are less able to think on their
feet. Other students are intimidated by the sense
that they need verbal dexterity to contribute.
A number of strategies can help the more silent
members of a tutorial group to contribute. These
include:
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 Getting the students to work in groups and
assigning roles to the students.
 Treating people’s comments with respect so
they do not feel humiliated.
 Building a hospitable classroom environment.
 Giving students opportunities to express their
understanding in ways that don’t depend on
verbal skills (for example, visual
representation).
 Using rounds and going around the class.
 Written preparation exercises.
 Inviting students to keep a log of responses to
class discussion so that you can assess their
involvement, even when they don’t talk much.
 Reflection and writing time in class.
Students do not do the required preparation
for class
This is one of the concerns mentioned most
frequently by tutors. Consider the following
points:
 The tutorials should be integral to the learning
outcomes and the assessment tasks of the
course. If, for example, the goals of the course
include the learning of certain skills, tutorial
classes should focus on the development of
these skills and preparation should relate to
these skills. A strategy that is used quite
widely across campus is to give students
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focused tasks on readings, or other tutorial
preparation, and give marks for these tasks.
These marks should count to the final
assessment. In some instances, students are
simply given a set percentage for satisfactory
completion of these tasks.
 Limit the volume of reading that students are
required to do. Many students are overloaded
with reading and simply can’t manage the
volume.
 Use focused questions and guided reading
strategies to help students to deal with the
readings. Learning to read academic articles is
demanding.
 In class, focus on manageable chunks or key
quotes if students have not done the
preparation.
The whole class is unresponsive
Tutors sometimes report that a particular class
does not work. Remember that there are so many
variables at work, and things like the time of day,
the physical setting, the combination of
personalities, all have a role to play. However,
tutors are more likely to be able to understand
what is happening if they get regular feedback
from the class.
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6. Getting Feedback
Many of the strategies that promote student
participation will give the tutor ongoing feedback
about the engagement of the students with their
learning and a sense of their attitudes towards the
class. These include regular writing exercises,
small group work and other student activities.
Tutors can also generally feel whether students
are happy and involved.
However, it is also a good idea to take other steps
to elicit student feedback. This should not be left
until the end of the semester, but occur regularly
so that your teaching is responsive to what is
happening in the classroom, Furthermore, it
reinforces the sense that the tutor values and
respects student input.
Brookfield and Preskill (1999) regularly use a
Critical Incident Questionnaire (CIQ) to get
student feedback. The five questions they ask are
as follows:
1. At what moment in class this week were you
most engaged as a learner?
2. At what moment in class this week were you
most distanced as a learner?
3. What action that anyone in the room took this
week did you find most affirming or helpful?
4. What action that anyone in the room took this
week did you find most puzzling or confusing
5. What surprised you most about the class this
week? (p.39)
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You can use a very simple formula on a regular
basis. You can just ask students to indicate what
they found most interesting and most difficult and
to note anything that they might like to change
about the tutorials.
7. Concluding the session
Try to allow for a few minutes to consolidate the
session. This does not mean that you need to tie
up all the loose ends, but simply remind the
students in some way of the main thrust of what
has happened in the class. Possibilities include
getting them to try to articulate the key questions
or points of view that have arisen or drawing the
tutorial discussion together as an idea or an
approach or suggesting things to look out for in
the coming week. Whatever approach you take,
try not to let the end of the session just drift away.
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References
Brookfield, S.D. & Preskill, S. (1999) Discussion
as a way of teaching. Buckingham: Open
University Press
Davies, P. (1999). 70 Activities for tutor groups.
Hampshire, UK: Gower
Exley, K. & Dennick, R. (2005). Small group
teaching. Milton Park, UK: Routledge Falmer
Habeshaw, S., Habeshaw,T. & Gibbs, G.(1984).
53 Interesting things to do in your seminars
and tutorials. Bristol, UK: Technical and
educational services
Tiberius, R. G. (1999). Small group teaching. A
trouble-shooting guide. London: Kogan Page
TUTORING: A GUIDE TO GETTING STARTED • TDU
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