The way the tutorials work, is that the students get a sheet of problems set each week by the person lecturing the first year physics module (there are three different people doing that each semester; I am one of the ones in the spring semester). They have to hand in their solutions for marking on Monday afternoon, and then we have the tutorials either at noon (which mine is) or at 2pm on the Tuesday. I think the students will get much more out of the tutorials if they have to show how they solved the problems, than if I talk at them for half-an-hour about how I would have gone about it. Of course, that only works if the students are actually willing to come to the board and show the others how they did it...
In some ways, I think it would be easier to go the 'instructor' route of me doing most of the talking. It certainly would mean I had more control, but I think it is more interesting for both me and the students if they talk. That way, it is also easier for me to see if there are things they have managed to do correctly without understanding, which does occasionally happen.
Some of my colleagues apparently have six (6!) tutees this year; that is one student too far to my thinking. My preferred size of a tutor group is four, I think, with enough students for discussions to be viable, but not some many that some of them might get lost (or hide) in the crowd. There is also the restriction that I don't think I could sensibly fit six students in my office...
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branchandroot
(no subject)
Date: 2014-10-08 10:30 pm (UTC)In some ways, I think it would be easier to go the 'instructor' route of me doing most of the talking. It certainly would mean I had more control, but I think it is more interesting for both me and the students if they talk. That way, it is also easier for me to see if there are things they have managed to do correctly without understanding, which does occasionally happen.
Some of my colleagues apparently have six (6!) tutees this year; that is one student too far to my thinking. My preferred size of a tutor group is four, I think, with enough students for discussions to be viable, but not some many that some of them might get lost (or hide) in the crowd. There is also the restriction that I don't think I could sensibly fit six students in my office...