Including unprepared students

Senior tutor Monica Micek gives advice on including unprepared students in tutorials.

Sometimes I find that not everyone has prepared for the tutorial. If this is the case, I split the tutorial into two groups (prepared versus unprepared). This helps me allocate my time and effort between two groups of students when preparation is key for the tutorial.

The aim is to encourage, not single out

I would like to preface this article by emphasising that this is not in any way meant to single out students and make them feel bad for coming unprepared. It is done to encourage participation among all students in a way that allows everyone to benefit from the tutorial.

I first started using this skill a couple of weeks into a tutorial that required weekly hand-ins of small pieces of assessment. The work done prior to the tutorial was extremely important for the upcoming tutorial. However, I noticed there were a handful of students who did not complete the work prior to the tutorial and therefore wouldn’t contribute to the group discussions. This wasn’t fair to the students who had prepared and the students who did not prepare were very disengaged.

Below is a step-by-step description of how I might use this strategy in a tutorial:

Check in with the tutorial

I usually say something along the lines of:

“Alright, you all know that your tutorial guides say that by this week you need to have prepared A, B, and C for this tutorial—but life or study gets in the way, I get it. However, honest show of hands, who has not prepared for today’s tutorial?”

Put students on different sides of the room

Ask the students who have prepared to go to one side of the room and the students who haven’t prepared to go to the other.

Explain the tasks for each group

• Prepared—discuss your findings from your assessments and what it means in relation to ‘core concept being discussed in the tutorial’.
• Unprepared—(example) do a mock interview about ‘product’ and find out the important attributes that are key to that consumer. Discuss how your findings relate to ‘core contact being discussed in the tutorial’. They can work as one big group or break into smaller groups. I let them decide.
• Both groups—after 10–15 minutes, both groups will come together for discussion.

Make your way around the groups

Start with the students who prepared. This allows the students who haven’t prepared to start doing their mini-assessments. End your rounds with the students who haven’t prepared.

Bring the two groups together by opening discussion to everyone

At this stage, the insights from the prepared students will be different from the insights from the unprepared students. However, this is never a bad thing. Often, the insights are complementary to each other and help to build connections around the content being discussed in that tutorial.

You might still face some challenges

Some students might fib about preparing and unprepared students might still not want to engage. As the students need to have written work done, it is very easy to tell if they had done the required task or not.

For example, when I realise that one student in the 'prepared' group is very quiet, I might ask about their work and they say they don’t have their notes. If I then ask what their work was on, and they might admit that they haven't done the work. I tell them it is totally okay that they haven’t prepared, but that they won't get much out of a discussion about the task if they hadn’t done it themselves. I'll then direct the student to join the other group.

For the unprepared students who still don't want to engage, I would join their group and—staying on track with the mock-interview example—ask them if they’d like to interview me or have me interview one of them. Sometimes they might feel more comfortable with one option, or perhaps no one in the group wants to take the lead.

This gives the unengaged students a gentle nudge to participate. I usually find that they start to engage naturally in group discussions in the next tutorial.

This strategy helps everyone

This strategy grants the students who have prepared for the tutorial the rich, in-depth discussions they expect, while allowing the students who haven’t prepared the opportunity to get up to speed with the rest of the tutorial content.

This also allows the tutor to take note of the students who haven’t prepared and identify any patterns. For example, if Student A has not prepared for two tutorials in a row I might check in with the student, ask if they need any help with clarification of content or if they’re stuck on something, and offer to help.

What to do if only one student comes unprepared

So far, in my experience, there are always at least two students who haven’t prepared. However if only one student was unprepared, I would get the prepared students into groups and chatting while I work through a mini-assessment with the student.