Discussion-based Tutorials

As a tutor, you have an important role to play in the context of discussion-based tutorials. These tutorials would typically require you to have live sessions with your students. In the online teaching and learning context, finding ways to engage in lively discussions without expecting students to have good internet connection or a lot of data has been difficult. There have been a variety of approaches taken, including fully asynchronous (for example, using the forums with clear requirements on word length, topic and even rubrics ) or semi-synchronous (for example, asking students to post a reading summary in a forum and then meeting up for a live chat) to fully synchronous (a tut conducted via audio only conversation on Zoom). There is no ‘correct’ approach, it needs to work for your students and be appropriate for the learning. You can also use polls at the beginning of the semester to better understand your students' access to data and connectivity. This may inform you how to communicate with students going forward. 

Below is a list of tools that you can use for discussion-based tutorials but please note that you may have to use other tools depending on which faculty you are based in.