This is a guest post by Annie McCallion for our Unconventional Teaching Ideas That Work series.
Creating the right tutorial atmosphere
When I was an undergraduate, I was terrified of tutorials (or seminars - small group teaching classes). When I did dare to attend one, I would spend the majority of my time there concentrating on how best to avoid eye contact with the tutor in a manner which would most astutely convey just how much psychological trauma they would cause me if they were to call upon me to answer any questions. It is difficult to say explicitly what I found so off-putting about my undergraduate tutorials. It wasn’t the case that I had bad tutors – the vast majority of my tutors were dedicated teachers who worked hard to encourage student participation – moreover, I was fortunate enough to – for the most part – have perfectly friendly peers in my tutorials groups.
When I entered the final year of my undergraduate degree, I began running reading groups for marginalised genders in philosophy. These reading groups were held as part of the In Parenthesis Project, a research project which investigates the biographical and theoretical connections between a group of women philosophers – Mary Midgley, Elizabeth Anscombe, Iris Murdoch and Philippa Foot – who were friends in Oxford during the time of the Second World War. Through the process of running these groups, it came to my attention that I was not the only person who was struggling to participate in tutorials, in fact, far from it. During these reading groups, we began discussing the aspects of our course that we each –in various ways – were struggling with. Tutorials, were a central subject matter and it became increasingly obvious that we each shared similar fears of being called upon during them, sounding ‘stupid’ or being told that we were wrong about this or that.
When reading was set for these groups, it would be a text from a member of the Wartime quartet. Interestingly, through exploring their we were exploring topics that closely aligned to those being discussed in some of our tutorials. However, the experience of these groups vastly differed from those of our tutorials. Unlike in our tutorials, we were all keen to contribute, felt at ease doing so and were able to develop our philosophical ideas and understanding a great deal. As such, when I began my PhD and subsequently my own undergraduate teaching I began reflecting on precisely what it was about our reading groups that made us feel so differently toward them than toward our tutorials. My hope with this was to be able to create the same environment for my students that I had enjoyed with my peers in this reading group.
Upon reflection, I was able to identify that the primary difference between our tutorials and reading groups pertained to – what I will describe as – tone. Unlike in our tutorials, there was a strictly informal and relaxed atmosphere surrounding our discussions. We were meeting, first and foremost, to chat with friends; and we discussed difficult philosophy in just the same way that we would discuss with friends other aspects of our lives that were confusing or challenging, and, just as good friends do, we helped each other work through the confusion and make sense of the struggle. It was this exact collaborative tone – one of cooperation, mutual support and encouragement – that I endeavoured to replicate for my own students.
Tables
All the tutorial rooms which I had been assigned for my teaching duties had the traditional arrangement– a whiteboard before rows of desks. As such, my first act as a new philosophy tutor was to rearrange the furniture. One noteworthy trait of our reading group was that we would always sit facing each other. That is, either in a square or a circle of chairs – even if that meant having to rearrange the furniture to do so. This had a considerable impact on our ability to relate to one another during discussions and – I think – had a substantial role to play in the collaborative tone that was established. Whilst the Victorian whiteboard before rows of desks classroom arrangement may arguably be most suitable for lecture-based (or non-interactive) learning, it has always astonished me that tutors sometimes attempt to engage students in collaborative discussion using such spatial arrangements. Fortunately, when I began my teaching, in addition to my undergraduate reading group experience, I was already quite well-acquainted with the pedagogical and sociological literature illustrating the importance of space and – more specifically – classroom layout on student participation and performance. However, even prior to running those reading groups or studying that research, it has always seemed intuitive to me that students will find it easier to engage in group discussions when they are able to see everyone they are talking to, (without undue craning of their necks). So, every morning before our tutorial began, my students and I would shift the Victorian classroom set-up into a much less impersonal spatial arrangement – such as a circle or square of chairs.
I should note though, rather ironically, if a tutor had asked me to do this during a tutorial when I was an undergraduate I think it would have immediately inspired automatic eye-rolling. In honesty, I’d have thoroughly resented not being able to hide behind the desk on which sat the notepad that I pretended to take notes on. Nevertheless, though I am sure it was initially met with some (fortunately well-hidden) reluctance from some students, it had a clear positive impact on student collaboration. Students were much more likely to direct their comments and questions toward each other as opposed to myself, the tutor. Moreover, the set-up established a much less combative tone for the discussion, which I suppose also did a lot to encourage the less talkative students to begin contributing, and it was this atmosphere of supportive collaboration that was well nourished by another tutorial ritual: cake eating!
Cake
Through working on the In Parenthesis research project – the project responsible for inspiring my undergraduate reading group– I had been made aware of Mary Midgley’s philosophy. More specifically, her ethos of collaborative – as opposed to combative – philosophy and her famous biscuit tin – that would eventually become symbolic of her collaborative philosophical ethos – which she would use to offer biscuits to her guests prior to beginning philosophical chats. Having been quite inspired by this, it occurred to me that this may be a rather wonderful way of relaxing the atmosphere surrounding tutorial discussions and encouraging a collaborative attitude amongst students. So, with this in mind, every evening before one of my tutorials I’d bake a large square vegan cake and fill a cake tin with slices of it for students to help themselves to during the tutorial.
Perhaps the most notable thing I observed in my four newly cake-fuelled tutorial groups was the extent to which it encouraged a supportive attitude amongst students towards each other. I have often heard fellow philosophy tutorial leaders complaining of students competing to ‘win’ philosophical debates or –separate but often related – having one or two students dominating discussions by speaking over others. I should say here that I didn’t notice either of these problems in any of the four tutorial groups I took. Quite remarkably, I witnessed students who were now actively encouraging their less talkative peers to contribute to discussions. Saying things such as: “X had some really interesting thoughts about this …” or “Maybe I’ll let X explain this, I think he’ll do it better” …
The presence of cake did a lot to shift the tone from one of a strictly formal or ‘examination’ atmosphere to one of a more friendly down-to-earth explorative tone. More precisely, I observed that it did a great deal to change the way my students viewed my role as their tutor; bringing and providing home-made cake seemed to serve as a reminder to them that I was not there to judge or scrutinise their philosophical progress. Rather, I was in fact there because – just like them – I wanted to explore important and interesting questions, as well as assist others in doing the same. In other words, the presence of cake allowed my students to see my humanity, something which is often obscured by the traditional tutorial set-up wherein the tutor is presented as something of a judgemental watchman over the discussion rather than simply an impartial and interested assistant. Further to this, I suspect the fact that my students saw me as person as opposed to a mechanical progress monitor nullified any temptations to ‘impress’ the tutor and thus to compete at ‘winning’ arguments, as well as enabling a more honest dialogue about what they were each struggling with as they did not have to fear any judgement.
This collaborative atmosphere was I think also both fostered and aided by the fact that many of my students developed friendships outside of the tutorial room. For instance, I had one group which set up their own weekly philosophy pub chat events, while another group independently set up their own google revision document to share notes in preparation for an exam. The fact that most of my students became friends outside of the tutorial room was attributable, at least in part, I think to the relaxed and cooperative tone that had been established in our tutorials. Since most of my tutorials were in the morning, many of my students treated them as their morning pick-me-up and the cake as their breakfast. This kind of atmosphere is generally more conducive to getting to know and, better, to becoming friends with peers.
Whilst the idea of such a relaxed atmosphere may run contrary to certain strands of popular teaching opinion – and there will be those who prefer to maintain a sterner approach to their teaching – I have found this to be only positive for the students I have taught. I did not find, as some may be inclined to suspect, that my students were any less likely to take tutorials or philosophy seriously because of it and – in fact – I noticed quite the contrary. My tutorials were amongst the best attended of the year group, I also found that students were more likely to do the tutorial reading, and even where the reading was very difficult, they were more inclined to attempt it.
The supportive and informal atmosphere established by the layout and presence of cake meant that they began to associate our tutorials – and by extension our philosophical subject matters – with positive experiences. As opposed to it representing a source of great intellectual agony designed only to test their stamina for boredom, they began to see it as an opportunity to get creative, to think and to share ideas with other interesting people.
I was really struck by this when one of my students came to me to ask for advice about her problematic attendance rates in other modules; this came as such a surprise to me because she was so consistent at attending and contributing to my tutorials. When I asked her about this, she explained her difficulties in managing her workload: “I have to sacrifice certain readings, which means I can’t really go to those tutorials. I always want to come to yours because I feel I learn so much from everyone and I have such a good time talking to everyone here I really try not to miss any of them.” ...
The central point of this piece is one which pertains to the importance of attending to the tone of our teaching and how really small gestures can have a large impact on this tone. What sort of atmosphere should we want to establish? One where students feel comfortable making mistakes, for one, and where admitting ‘defeats’ and asking for help is not only accepted but expected and encouraged. Very rarely, if ever, are we told how to go about doing this. More importantly, because many of us were ourselves educated in environments that tested our endurance for mundane or threatening learning, it can be difficult to know what this idealistic learning environment would even look like and thus impossible to replicate it for our own students. Rearranging the furniture and providing cake were two successful experiments in finding ways of encouraging the kind of creative, collaborative and supportive atmosphere which my friends and I were lucky enough to enjoy as undergraduates in our reading group, and which I hope I was able to successfully replicate for my own students.
Annie McCallion is a doctoral researcher at the Department of Philosophy at the University of Manchester.
Yes, tone is interesting. I was recently at an all woman conference. And I noticed I felt so much more at ease. This is especially interesting, and kind of surprised me, given that I would not consider myself uncomfortable at other conferences. I never have a problem asking questions or a fear of getting called on. And still I noticed a difference. It really is amazing how meanness is such a central norm of the discipline, from classrooms, to journal reviews, to conferences....not only is almost all the focus on tearing down another's argument instead of helping them with it, but it is on tearing them down in a way that shows their idea is completely worthless and that any reasonable person will see that it's worthless. I wish I knew how to change this .
Posted by: Amanda | 07/30/2019 at 02:26 AM