A tutor's guide to teaching and learning at UQ - TEDI - University of ...

24 A Tutor’s Guide to Teaching and Learning at UQIt is important for you as the tutor, to respond to any processes of storming, particularlyif your role is tested (e.g., students not adhering to ground rules, out-of-role questioning,etc). The rest of the class will most likely be looking at you to act in some way, torespond to students involved, and may become confused about their place and role (andyours) in the class group, and will not know where to look for leadership. You may notwant to "lead" or emphasise your authority, but you may well have a problem of wastedtime and loss of a learning culture if you do not.Getting students to form groupsThere are a variety of methods you can use to get students to form small groups. Forexample, prior to class you can allocate numbers to groups and then get each student toselect a numbered card from a bucket in class, and join together as groups according toyour selected groupings (e.g., if you have 16 students in the class, you might allocatenumbers 1 to 4, 5 to 8, 9 to 12, and 13 to 16 into groups). This method of course, iscompletely arbitrary, and depending on the mix of students in your class, you mightprefer to use a method by which students form groups on their own using some kind ofself-selection criteria such as;♦♦♦♦♦Desire to succeed or get high marks (e.g., all those who want a ‘7’ to form onegroup, all those who just want a ‘pass’ to form another, etc)Desire to minimise workloadIntending to go on to further study in discipline (e.g., similar career goals andinterests)“Outsiders” just filling credit pointsDesire to complete course or subject regardless of marks (e.g., driven bypersonal interest in the course)Of course by using such methods, students may miss out on learning from each other insome ways. For example, by not mixing interest areas those students who don’t thinkthe course it particularly interesting may not pick up on other students’ enthusiasm andinterest that can sometimes be contagious! Or by not mixing achievement levels, someof the lower achieving students may not learn from their higher achieving peers.However, the obvious advantage to using self-selection is that you might minimisegroup conflict problems.