Small group teaching
Small group teaching
Key Questions:
- How do you organise sessions to help students form a community where they learn from each other and share experience or knowledge?
- How do you model a collaborative learning process?
- How do you leverage the online space and collaboration tools so that sessions and independent study complement each other?
- How do you create opportunities for students to explore a topic in depth?
- How do you build thinking time into activities to give students time to develop their ideas before communicating with others?
- How do you ensure that each session builds on the previous session and prepares students for the next one?
Solent Best Practice
Will Zoppelini and Jon Cooper discuss a research project they undertook to explore student engagement with different types of in-class activities.
Active learning strategies
Tools
- Padlet: create online boards where students can post ideas and collaborate.
- Answer garden: create an online brainstorming space for groups.
- Microsoft One Drive: have students create and share Word, PowerPoint, Excel documents or other files such as PDF and video through their university account.
- Bubbl.us: Use a collaborative mind mapping tool like bubbl.us to get students creating and sharing ideas.
- Quizlet: invite students to create decks of flashcards of key concepts. Cards can be created and shared.
- Explore a selection of 30 digital collaboration tools.
Resources
- K Exley and R Dennick (2004) Small group teaching: tutorials, seminars and beyond This practical guide introduces activities and strategies for seminars and active learning sessions.
- S Habeshaw, G Gibbs, T Habeshaw (1987) 53 interesting things to do in seminars and tutorials. This short book summarises a variety of activities you could use to promote engagement and interaction in small group teaching sessions.
- E Barkley, K Cross and C Major (2005) Collaborative learning techniques: a handbook for college faculty
- D Boud, R Cohen and J Sampson (2001) Peer learning in Higher Education: learning from and with each other
Example active learning activities
The short clips below illustrate activities you can adapt to help students work together and think creatively within your sessions.
- The jigsaw method
- Lego serious play
- How to draw to remember more
- Four corners strategy
- Place mats
- Think-pair-share