Collaborative and learner-centred group activities

This is a very brief activity at the beginning of a tutorial that helps to set the theme and tone, and warms students up for the session. 

• Pose a personalised question: what is your experience of [tutorial topic]? 
• Give an image or short text with an accompanying prompt. 
• Ask students to define a key word from the topic for the week. 

Alternative: a warmer can be used at any point in a tutorial to change the theme or pace. 

Mixing students helps nurture a greater sense of belonging in a tutorial and also gives students the opportunity to learn from a range of experiences. There are several quick and low-prep ways to mix students into random groups:

• Allocate a number to each student (e.g. between 1-5) and ask students to sit with classmates who were allocated the same number. Quick and effective!
• Ask two students in each group to move one group to the right. This method of mixing is less confrontational if some students like to stick with a friend.
• Ask students to sit according to their course majors (if your tutorial has a good spread).
• Ask students to use an online dice roller and sit according to the number they roll.

Getting feedback from students is one of the best ways of gauging their understanding and engagement. This doesn’t have to just be students answering tutor questions; see ‘Feeding back from group work’ for ideas.

Giving students space to ask each other and the tutor questions can support their autonomy. Space includes both time in the tutorial without teacher talk so learners can think and work, and opportunities to ask questions, including synchronously in the tutorial and asynchronously.

This ranking activity asks students to evaluate and prioritise information based on its relevance and importance.

Suggested procedure:

1. Present students with a list of items that have been discussed in the tutorial, such as causes, issues, arguments, or statements.
2. Alone, students rank their top five (e.g. most urgent, most important, etc.). Emphasise that students should have reasons for their ranking.
3. Students come into small groups and compare their ranking. They should justify their choices to their group.
4. Together, students negotiate a group top three.
5. Each group’s top three is shared with the tutorial group. The whole tutorial can then negotiate an overall top three.

This activity encourages students to consider what questions they still have about a tutorial topic.

Suggested procedure:

1. Alone, students write down one question they have about the topic of the tutorial. This could be on a Post-It, in their note books, or in a shared document.
2. In a small group, students share their questions and try to answer them together.
3. Of the questions they can’t answer, together the students decide which question is the most important.
4. One question from each group is shared (anonymously) with the tutorial. This could be done by collecting Post-Its or writing the questions in one overall shared document.
5. Other groups try to answer the questions. The tutor answers any remaining questions.

Alternative: this activity could be used at the beginning of the tutorial to assess students’ prior knowledge.

This activity is inspired by de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats. It encourages students to ‘wear’ different hats to explore an issue from different perspectives, encouraging creativity and innovation. There are six hats/perspectives: white (facts and objectivity), yellow (optimism), black (risks and problems), red (feelings and emotion), green (possibilities and alternatives) and blue (processes).

Suggested procedure:

1. Organise students into small groups.
2. Give each group a hat/perspective. Ask them to consider the tutorial topic from this perspective and think of a question about the topic.
3. Move students into new groups so that each group has at least one student from each hat colour.
4. Students have a discussion about the topic and ask each other their questions.

Collaborative writing encourages students to share and synthesise ideas to learn from each other and identify any gaps in knowledge. This activity can be run with paper or a shared document.

Suggested procedure:

1. Organise students into groups and ask them to nominate a scribe.
2. Students write a summary of the tutorial topic/issue/debate/etc. They must write one text per group and not individual texts.
3. Each text is shared with the tutorial group. If written on paper, the summaries can be stuck around the room. Shared documents can be collated by the tutor.
4. Each group reads the other summaries and picks the one they think most accurately summarises the tutorial.

Alternative: students could write a refutation/example/case study/etc.

A quick way to get feedback from groups is to nominate a spokesperson at the beginning of the group work and ask them to give a one sentence summary back to the tutorial when the group work is over. To make this even quicker, combine this tip with one of the other suggestions.

To create a record in a Canvas module of ideas generated from group work, students could write their one-sentence summary or any other group ideas in a Comment Box on a Canvas page. This can then be read by other groups and serve as a record to be referred to in later tutorials. This feedback can also be completed simultaneously by all groups.

As mentioned in Collaborative writing, student work can be displayed around the tutorial room. This is a quick way for students to read the work of others, and gives more space than crowding around a whiteboard.

A shared document is an efficient way to share ideas from each group simultaneously. If students have been working in their own group document, the document can be shared with the tutor, or ideas from the document pasted into an overall shared document.

Alternatively, students can add ideas from the group to a shared online whiteboard. Learners can also participate in a shared document anonymously if the document sharing set up allows for this.

The ‘Open-Ended’ and ‘Q&A’ slides can be used for efficient, anonymous feedback or questions, and take very little set up. View our Mentimeter collection for more ideas.