Taking tutorials and supporting students online

This blog was written by Tanya Fernbank, a colleague in the Language Centre

This blog discusses my personal experience of conducting tutorials or consultations online since the beginning of lockdown as well as some insights I have gained into the way other tutors have dealt with this. Although conducting tutorials online in the last three months has not been as challenging as learning to teach synchronous classes in groups, it has nevertheless presented its own difficulties. Whilst there have not been major changes in the academic support I have needed to provide, it has been necessary to offer additional pastoral support due to the specific situations which students have found themselves in due to the pandemic. This includes checking how students are if they have remained in the UK or travelled home after lockdown and whether they have had periods in quarantine on their return to their home countries if they had been studying in the UK which have interfered with their studies. It has also meant checking whether students have missed classes or need to complete extenuating circumstances forms due to mitigating factors related to the pandemic as well as the usual ones. In addition, tutors have also needed to explain how to join online tutorials as well as providing extra support in case of students’ technical issues with using online platforms and accessing or navigating Microsoft Teams. This has meant that while the length of tutorials has not increased, the range of support that is needed by students has changed. 

Setting up  

Of the two courses which I have taught on since we started teaching online, one involved a shift from face-to-face to online tutorials towards the end of the course, while tutorials for the other course all took place online. In the first instance, setting the tutorials up on Blackboard Collaborate Ultra and sending invitations with links to students to join these was no different from asking them to joining group lessons on this platform. However, several students had connectivity problems, either due to being in quarantine in their countries and not having proper internet access or issues with their own computers. Though I personally did not have problems with students in China being unable to connect at all, I know some tutors did. I was not initially prepared for how to deal with such issues, so found it quite stressful if a student couldn’t connect as I did not feel equipped to give them the technical support they might need. However, I gradually found that remaining calm and suggesting alternative ways for students to speak to me or contact me such as by turning off the video to improve connectivity helped students to gain confidence and both my ability to help and their own ability to circumnavigate the issues.  

On the course where tutorials were conducted on Microsoft Teams,  I preferred to book tutorials at times which were convenient for students in different time zones and send students invitations to attend so that they could enter the meeting room at the tutorial time, as I see it as their responsibility to make sure they attend, just as they would if tutorials were face to face.   After covering classes for other tutors, however, I discovered that different tutors had set these up in different ways. Equally valid ways of arranging tutorials used by other tutors were to ring students directly on Teams at the time agreed or to give them the option to sign up at a time which was convenient to them; an option which may mirror the way tutorials are set up in students’ future academic departments and also currently allows students in different time zones to choose times which fit in with their daily schedules.  The advantage of this is that it encourages them to take responsibility for organising their time and may emulate the way in which tutorials are set up on their future courses. However, while this can work well on face-to-face courses where I have either brought a physical sign-up sheet to class or out it on a notice board, I have found it to be time consuming when asking students to sign up on a collaborative document on the OneDrive as it involves chasing up students who don’t sign up, since tutorials are a compulsory part of their attendance. In addition, due to the different approaches taken, when it came to covering tutorials for another tutor, some students accepted my invitation to a Teams meeting but others assumed I would ring them, which was easily resolved but caused some confusion. I found that sending groups of tutees a brief description of how to accept an invitation on Teams and join a Teams meeting at the time specified along with screenshots, which they seemed to find particularly helpful. 

Supporting students with connectivity issues 

Where students were unable to connect properly at the time of the tutorial, I tried ringing them to see if the connection was better. I was also able to offer them an alternative time if they were likely to have better internet access late on one course as I did not have many tutees, but this is probably not realistic on a large course as it would take up too much time.  I also set up individual chats with students on Teams as well as setting up a group for my tutees to contact them all about related questions or issues and avoid repetition.   

Navigating resources and clarifying instructions 

An issue which came to light in some tutorials is that some students had misunderstood or not read homework or assessment instructions properly. This may be a consequence of not having direct lessons and reduced time for synchronous learning, meaning that there is less time for concept checking. Students may also feel less comfortable asking questions in front of the group online and they can’t ask each other questions for clarification of instructions as easily as they might when sitting round a table when they are not in breakout rooms. I did not always know what instructions had been given in the synchronous classes as I often conducted tutorials after classes as I had not taught all the lessons on the course. However, where it became clear that students had misunderstood something, I clarified what they needed to do and showed them where to find the written instructions in the assessment files linked to Teams. I also found that sending links to shared files such as those on assessment on OneDrive enabled students to find instructions which they had looked at initially but couldn’t locate again. It therefore seems that instructions do not just need to be clear but more repetition is also needed in written form if students have been given the initially instructions orally than if they are given in face-to-face classes, where students can check misunderstandings more easily with their peers or the tutor.   

However, it is not always possible to spend whole tutorial clarifying instructions when other academic issues may also need to be discussed. To avoid this, I tried to clarify these points in group emails after the tutorials, thus leaving more time to focus on academic and pastoral support during the tutorials themselves. This could be particularly useful when tutors have larger cohorts of tutees than I did last term. It could also be worth giving further consideration to when and how to clarify instructions as I had to remind some students of how to find materials on Class Notebook several times even though the course leader had sent them instructions, or to clarify where the original instructions could be found.  It could therefore be worth giving further consideration to when and how to clarify instructions. 

Providing academic support and extra resources 

Although the content of academic support may not have changed greatly, the way this support is provided differs in online tutorials as the student and tutor cannot physically look at a piece of students’ written work together at the same time. When discussing a student’s work, I have therefore either shared my screen with students so that they can see which aspect of their homework or assessments on Turnitin or my comments on this I am commenting on. Alternatively, I encourage students to share their screen with me so that they can show me which aspects of their work or task instructions they want to ask questions about. If students are unable to use their video for some reason, I ask them to be quite specific about which page or comment their questions refer to so that I can answer and questions as helpfully as possible. In response to questions on how to improve aspects of academic skills or language in response to tutor feedback, I also sometimes used the tutorial group chat on Teams to send useful links to resources through Skills@library, the Language or external sources where appropriate. 

Record keeping 

Keeping tutorial records or encouraging students to do so has not changed much for me since before lockdown. I have found that when I asked students to complete tutorial records themselves after each tutorial in order to help them reflect on what they have learned, some students did not do this regularly and had to be reminded to do so. I therefore also kept a brief record of my own in case of later issues with assessments and to remind me to send follow-up emails or information where necessary. One tutor also said that she gets students to record the tutorial if they want so that they can listen to the recording again if there is something which was discussed which they want to check on. This gives students a further chance to practise their listening skills, puts the onus on them to take responsibility for recording and saves having to worry about getting their permission to do so. It also means that if they are not comfortable with tutorials being recorded, they do not have to record these. However, some tutors might not feel comfortable about their tutorials being recorded in this way. 

Conclusion 

Overall, my recent experience of conducting tutorials has encouraged me to consider how I set these up and communicate how they will run to students, as well as tailoring the support I provide to the pastoral needs of students in specific situations and different countries due to the pandemic.  It has also prompted me to think about how to clarify instructions, both in the tutorials themselves and in online lessons, and to find alternative ways doing so remotely such as by using screenshots to illustrate these in order to give students more opportunities to complete tasks and assessments successfully.  Finally, it has made me think further about how to provide academic support and links to further academic resources whilst online. I am interested in seeing how some of the techniques I have used recently will work with larger groups of students and whether the techniques we use for online tutorials should vary depending on class sizes.