Tutor–student interaction in seminar teaching: Implications for professional development

Abstract

While much of the recent academic literature into university seminar teaching has focused on collaborative learning involving student–student interaction, little research has been done into tutor–student interaction and how tutors interact with students during whole class, group-based and one-to-one teaching. In response to this finding, this exploratory study investigates the quality of tutor–student interaction in the teaching of an undergraduate and postgraduate engineering management class taught by the same tutor. A third-year undergraduate class of home students and a 1-year masters largely made up of international students were observed, video- and audio-recorded and analysed using a systematic interactive observation schedule and lesson transcripts. The analysis of the tutor–student discourse moves revealed the talk was largely lecturer-fronted with an emphasis on knowledge transmission and that there were few differences in the discourse practices of the tutor when teaching home and international students. In the light of the findings, the article argues for more research to be conducted into how tutors can be helped to engage in more dialogic interactions with their students in whole class, group-based and one-to-one interactions to ensure they are given the opportunity to engage in intellectually stimulating classroom talk and deep learning. The implications of the findings for the professional development of university tutors are also considered.

Innføring av studentaktive arbeidsformer i seminarundervisningen. Hvilken betydning har dette på læringsutbyttet og klassemiljøet?

“…På seminarer er det ofte et mål at studentene skal kunne diskutere og løse problemer sammen (Exley & Dennick, 2004). Studiet til Hardman (2016) viser at diskusjonene i seminarundervisning ofte er dominert av laereren, og spørsmål fra laereren i mange tilfeller ikke lykkes i å øke studentenes begrepsmessige forståelse. Studentene vil i en slik laererstyrt diskusjon i mindre grad initiere egne ideer i faget.…”

“…Seminarlaereren er ofte den underviseren som har mest kontakt med studentene, og vil i høy grad kunne påvirke studentenes faglige utvikling. For at seminarlaerere skal kunne gi undervisning av høy kvalitet er det behov for oppfølging og profesjonell utvikling (Hardman, 2016). En studie av Derting et al (2016) rapporterte at laerere i STEM-fagene (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) som deltok på et utviklingsprogram gjennomførte mer studentaktiv undervisning enn andre laerere.…”

Exploring undergraduate students’ productive struggles in a quantitative literacy course: Implications for the development of tutoring

“…There have been studies promoting cooperative learning in higher education (Baeten et al 2010;Biggs 2011;Cavanagh 2011), which have largely focused on student-student interactions, while ignoring the roles of tutors during these interactions (Hardman 2016). As a result, very few studies have focused on student-tutor interactions during group-based teaching; these are dominated by tutor monologues punctuated by short question-and-answer sequences (De Klerk 1997), and discourses that mirror what may have been experienced by students in schools (O'Boyle 2010).…”

Seminar Teaching in Chinese Higher Education: A Bibliometrics and Content Analysis

“…Seminar teaching, which has the characteristics of research and inspiration, can stimulate students' learning potential [1][2] and promote teacher-student interaction [3] . So, seminar has become an important form of teaching, and has been widely used in many disciplines [4] .…”