Faculty of Science Tutor Development Program

UniServe Science, The University of Sydney
Enhancing Australian Science and Mathematics education

Tutor and Demonstrator Development Program Archive

Management of Small Group Teaching and Learning

Vignette 2
One large tutorial class has two very bright and vocal students: Mark and Tran. They seem to find the material easy and work regularly. You look forward to today's class because it's second last class for the semester and you are curious if they will be able to easily find the best solution to the problems on this week's tricky problem sheets. You are not disappointed: they swiftly announce the solution and explain how they did it. The rest of the class sits dumbfounded as usual. You start your round of explaining the process to the less able students making sure not to make them feel too dumb. Then you overhear an exchange between the two women in the class. You aren't sure what their names are. You hear something like: "Oh hell, I give up. Perhaps we should have had a sex change before starting this course."
Semester 2 2005
Issues identified: dominating group/exclusion group being prepared perceived favouritism time being aware of all issues - environment, group	Suggestions for dealing with the issues: structure tutorial - work through easier problems leading to more difficult ones
Semester 1 2005
Issues identified: favouritism	uggestions for dealing with the issues: know all students names be aware of the varying abilities within the class avoid favouristism, unequal attention open questioning to all students engage individuals be aware of all minority groups avoid being patronising use bright students as mentors - make them a resource not a problem
Semester 2 2004
Issues identified: dominating group/exclusion group being prepared perceived favouritism time being aware of all issues - environment, group	Suggestions for dealing with the issues: structure tutorial - work through easier problems leading to more difficult ones
Semester 2 2003
Issues identified: lack of interaction/co-operation dominance, 'star' students range of abilities students did not have the chance to think uneven attention	Suggestions for dealing with the issues: cater for all abilities structure questions so that all students can be drawn in use the active/bright students to stimulate discussion group management know student's names and use them
Semester 1 2003
Issues identified: teacher impartiality teacher focussed on two students "bright" students possibly tutorial structure lack of involvement of all students tutor's inexperience, perhaps neglect or laziness lack of awareness of all students awareness of conditions	Suggestions for dealing with the issues: be aware of the group dynamics and what it is like from the students' side strategies employed, small group "use" the more able students as a resource ignore during class, debate later outside class

Alternative Vignette 2
You are a demonstrator in a large laboratory class. Students work in groups of 6. This is week 5 of semester. You have introduced the objectives of the experiment and highlighted some of the experimental techniques. You notice one particular group of 6 students that are working together. While all members of the group appear to be working, you notice that two of the group seem to be particularly involved while the other four are just following their instructions. Soon the experiment is complete. You check the work and find it has been done competently. As the students are leaving you hear one of the four remark "Even though you don't learn anything, at least you get out of the lab early"
Semester 1 2004
Issues identified: Lack of interest in topic or bored	Suggestions for dealing with the issues: identify levels of knowledge indentify level of competency identify interest levels appoint roles within groups and vary roles identify objective of the activity indentify your own objectives use questioning one-on-one questioning to identify why, how

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