Tips on Group Tutoring

Some tutors find that group tutoring offers a lot of advantages over one-on-one tutoring. Here are some suggestions to help group sessions be successful:

• Arrange seating and notes in a way that encourages interaction and visibility.
• Provide direction, not dictatorship
• Guide the conversation, but remember to limit how much you talk
• Encourage participation
• Control dominant students
• Consciously, but slowly, draw shy students into the flow of conversation
• Stress confidentiality
• Summarize the ideas presented in sessions
• Encourage interaction by having students answer each other's questions
• Take a vote instead of giving a blanket yes or no response
• Ask open-ended questions
• Rephrase questions if they do not yield comments. Don't always clarify with an explanation
• Use eye contact
• The more you experience tutoring, the easier it will become to facilitate group tutoring effectively