Designs for small group teaching

There’s a variety of ways in which you can structure your tutorials in order to help students to work together successfully. Here we share ten that we have found to be the most successful. You can use these on their own, or use a variety of them during a tutorial session. You might choose different designs each week depending on the tutorial topic, or find a design that works best for your tutorial groups and use that each time. The important thing is to think through for yourself what you want the tutorial to achieve and choose a design that works best for you and your students. You can download a copy of these as a PDF if you like.

1. Rounds

Go around the room and ask each student to say one sentence about a question or topic. This can work well as an icebreaker at the beginning of a session or as a wrap up activity at the end of a session.

2. Brainstorming

This method can be a good way of generating diverse ideas quickly. Stand at the board (or, better, get a volunteer to do this) and ask students to call out ideas in answer to a question such “how do we …?” “what do we know about …?”

This technique can be used to generate a set of topics to be allocated to small groups for the next section of the tutorial.

3. Pair dialogue, version 1

Put students into pairs and ask them to speak in turns to each other about a pre-agreed topic or issue. Each student must listen to the other without responding before both students have had a turn. This is a good way of getting quieter students to articulate their thoughts in a non-threatening situation.

This activity can be used to feed into other activities such as  TPS or buzz groups (see below)

4. Pair dialogue, version 2

  • Put students into pairs and ask them to speak in turns to each other about a pre-agreed topic or issue. Each student must listen to the other without responding before both students have had a turn. This is a good way of getting quieter students to articulate their thoughts in a non-threatening situation.
  • Ask each student to summarise what their partner said into a sentence or two and feed this back to the whole group.

5. Think, pair, share (TPS)

  • Give students a question and ask them to think about it alone without speaking for a very short period of time (just a couple of minutes).
  • Next get them to turn to their neighbour and ask them to state their answer and justify their reasoning.
  • Now put them into larger groups of four or five and repeat step 2.
  • Finally have a whole group discussion where each group feeds back in turn. Can you reach a consensus?

6. Buzz groups

  • Put students into groups of two or three and give them a topic or issue to discuss for a few minutes.
  • Reconvene as a whole class and get each group in turn to say one thing that they discussed in their group. Keep going around the groups until there are no further answers.
  • Alternatively give each group a different issue, and allow each group time to feedback about their issue in turn.

7. Debate

  • Find a controversial question (even better, get the group to come up with one). Appoint a chair for the debate (or choose to chair it yourselves). Phrase the question as a standard debate question: “This house believes that …”
  • Divide the class into two, either arbitrarily or by letting them choose sides. Give them time to put together their arguments.
  • Give each side a set amount of time to make their arguments verbally.  The side in favour of the argument go first, then the side against.
  • Allow each side a couple of minutes as a group to come up with a response.
  • Let each side respond. The side against the argument go first this time, then the side for the house.
  • Reconvene as a whole class. Discuss which side each student thinks was more successful and why. Vote as a class.

8. Peer critiquing

In order for this to work students need to come to the class with something that they have already produced and that they are willing to share with a peer.  This could be a previously submitted essay, a draft of an assignment or presentation, or maybe just an outline of something they intend to write.

  • Put the students in pairs and give them time to read each others’ work. As they do so, ask them to consider what has been done well, and what could be done better. Each student then provides feedback to their partner in turn.
  • You could take the feedback criteria for your course and use this to provide a set of guidelines for students to provide feedback: so each student provides feedback on what was done well and what could be done better according to each of the set criteria.
  • You could also ask students to tell their partner if there is any specific aspect of their work that they would like to get feedback on.

9. Jigsaw groups

  • Divide your tutorial topic into sections and give one section to each group (the expert groups).  Students work in their expert group to help each other to learn this topic.
  • Now rearrange the groups. In each new group have one member of each expert group (the jigsaw groups). Each student in turn teaches the other members of the jigsaw group about their expert group subject.
  • Reconvene as a whole class. Each group feeds back one thing that they have learned. 

10. Problem based learning

  • Divide students into groups of about 5 and give each a topic (either the same topic each, or different ones).
  • Each group appoints a scribe and a chair.
  • Group defines the problem to be discussed. Scribe records agreed version.
  • Group brainstorms possible answers. Scribe records agreed version.

Reconvene as a whole class. Each group in turn feeds back their scenario and agreed solution.