Coordinating a large group of students can be time consuming. Working with a great team of tutors can reduce the burden and promote a positive learning atmosphere for everyone involved. These suggestions have been used by numerous course coordinators, and can make teaching large courses more productive, engaging and rewarding.
Tip | Details |
Develop a tutor guide | A hard copy or electronic booklet collating the information you need tutors to have can go a long way to providing direction throughout the teaching term. Use this to booklet to guide your initial team meeting. You can download a template to construct a guide here.
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Set up an online group | Determine how you will communicate with the team. You may consider setting up a group in Microsoft teams to enable communication and file sharing between you and team members. If documents or other resources are developed throughout these can easily be uploaded to the group as reference material. Discussion channels can be set up at the start of semester based on weekly topics. Provide a channel for asking and answering questions not related to content and assessments. Show team members how to subscribe to channel notifications and how to receive an email to be notified of any missed activity. This way each time a new posting is added, they will receive an email from the site and will not have to continually check for new posts. Further help on using Microsoft Teams is available from the IT Service Desk. |
Have a communications strategy | Set up protocols about communication, both within the team and with students. Ensure you are enrolled in each tutorial group (if they exist), and that you receive any emails the tutors send to their students. As the course coordinator, communicate important information directly with students, so that they are not receiving mixed messages from different tutors. |
Set up strategic meetings | To establish a sense of team cohesion, arrange a meeting before the start of semester. Team members can get to know each other, and mentor-mentee relationships (see below) can be established. Topics for the first meeting:
If you are using a tutor guide, ensure that the guide and the meeting are well aligned. Set up several meetings throughout the teaching term. This will enable the team to get together to discuss any issues they may have. More importantly, set up a team meeting before each assessment task is due. Ensure that all members of the team are explaining the task and its requirements to the students. A marking moderation before the task is due will help to clarify any misunderstandings and to increase the likelihood of marking consistency. Keep in mind that team members will need to be paid for their time and you will need to ensure you have budget approval before scheduling the meeting. |
Provide mentoring | The course coordinator’s role is to mentor new tutors. Ensure that you contact new tutors regularly and expect to spend some time with them. |
Set up a peer assisted teaching scheme | Pair an experienced tutor with a new tutor so that they receive support. Set up a peer assisted teaching scheme. LDTI can help if you need extra support. |
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