TUTOR .EvAUJArES
CATEGORY 4 GROUP COHESION
Dillon (1986) notes that getting learners involved in the developing discussion is a crucial first step to learning (see also chapter 4 page 85). Inviting learners into the discussion is an important starting point from which to develop the interaction.
Further, in order to monitor learners progress, the tutor must continually check
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whether learners understand her explanations. Inviting learners to participate together with constant monitoring of their progress facilitates a sense of group cohesion. Questions were categorised as group cohesion questions if they exhibited the following features: 1) the question elicited feedback responses from learners, enabling the tutor to monitor learners progress and 2) the question elicited a response from the group, inviting learners to engage in the discussion.
Feedback (TO 4A) questions are aimed at ascertaining whether the learners are satisfied with tutor's answers to their questions. These questions provide feedback to the tutor regarding the learners progress as well as the tutor's 'teaching' ability.
These kinds of questions are crucial for tutors to monitor their tutoring.
"Tutor3:Did you understand that?"
Soliciting group response (TO 4B) questions invite learners to participate in the discussion. The tutor may achieve this by giving clues as well as inviting responses.
This questioning technique facilitates collaborative group work, with learners working together to achieve the answer. Thus peer interaction is used to provoke discussion and learning.
"Tutor1:Anybody? Yes?"
LEARNER RESPONSE CATEGORIES:
LEARNER RESPONSE DEFINITION
(L.R.)
CATEGORY 1:
CLOSED LR 1A Direct answer
RESPONSE - - - -LR 18 g~petition_____ ---..---_. - - - ~ ---- - - -- ~ ---~_.-
LR 1C Group response
LR 10 Responds with a Question CATEGORY 2:
FEEDBACK LR2A Use of examples
RESPONSE LR28 Feedback
CATEGORY 3:
ACTION LR 3A Works on a task/text/test during the tutorial RESPONSE
CATEGORY 1
CLOSED RESPONSE
Closed responses end enquiry and close discussion. The following learner responses were grouped together to form this category:
Direct answers (LR 1A) to tutors' questions from the learners aim at closing enquiry.
"Tutor3:What did you say type is?
Student 1:I said that a thing that was discrete"
Repeating (LR 1B) the tutor's question/answer or repeating their own or another learner's question/answer.
"Tutor3:So a third container.
Student 1: Third container. So you pour the one container into the third container, so that the levels of water will be low. "
A group response (LR 1C)enables individual group members to participate in the discussion in a relatively face saving (anonymous) manner.
"Tutor1: What characteristics can't be passed on, not genetic ...
Group: Acquired. "
Respond to a question with a question (LR 1D). These kinds of responses are usually queries about the question, most often they are responses that seek clarity.
Although sustaining the discussion, they are not open responses, as they ultimately seek to clarify what the tutor has asked rather than pursuing the tutor's question.
"Tutor1: Ok, what about this next heading, embedded and disembedded thinking.
What does this mean?
Student 1:Embedded?"
CATEGORY 2
FEEDBACK RESPONSE
Using examples (LR 2A) Sometimes learners will use examples of their own to illustrate their understanding of theoretical concepts.
"Student2:I think an example would be a bushman who's always lived out in the bush confronting television because they would have never ever seen this".
Feedback (LR28) is a direct response to the tutor's feedback questions (T.Q.8), providing the tutor with feedback regarding her explanations.
"Tutor1: ...Does that help you?
Student1: Yes."
CATEGORY 3
ACTION RESPONSES
Acting on the text/test/feedback (LR 3A) Learners completes a written task during the tutorial.
LEARNER QUESTION CATEGORIES
LEARNERS DEFINITION
QUESTIONS (L.Q.) CATEGORY 1:
CLOSED LQ 1A LinQuistic clarification Questions QUESTIONS LQ 18 Factual Questions
LQ 1C Administrative questions CATEGORY 2:
OPEN LQ2A 'borrowed' questions
QUESTIONS
CATEGORY 1
CLOSED QUESTIONS
These kinds of questions close enquiry, rather than facilitating open discussion.
Learners rely heavily on these types of questions. The following learner questions were grouped together under this category:
Linguistic clarification (LQ 1A) questions, refer to queries regarding the meaning of English words.
"Student 1: 'Type theories are now 'outmoded", what does that mean?
Tutor3:Outdated, it's old."
Factual (LQ 1B)questions are aimed at checking facts and are predominantly content questions. These factual questions can easily be answered as they refer to established 'facts'. These types of questions have readily agreed upon single right or wrong answers.
"Student5: Sothey are same structure but different function because of environment?
Tutor1: Yes."
Administrative (LQ 1C)questions are predominantly about when assessment will happen, with learners constantly checking information regarding test/exam dates.
"Student: sothe test is in our lecture period?"
CATEGORY 2 OPEN QUESTIONS
Although ostensibly similar to the open questions asked by tutors, these questions are in fact questions borrowed from tasks or previous examinations or tests.
Consequently, they are not open in the sense that tutors' questions are. While tutors' open questions demonstrate a familiarity with textuality and consequent
acknowledgement that knowledge is constructed by opening enquiry, learners' open questions are posed in order to elicit an answer, that is, in order to close enquiry.
Therefore, tutors' use of open questions illustrates that they know what the purpose of asking these kinds of questions is; to open enquiry. Conversely, learners' use of open questions illustrate that learners do not know how to use these questions to provoke enquiry. So, while these learner questions are academic open questions (borrowed from academic texts, tasks and examinations), they do not exhibit learners' ability to effectively interrogate text. They are questions that ask for some sort of boundary or limit to be set by the tutor. That is, they are posed in order to close enquiry in an answer. Consequently, they evidence a desire to ground knowledge in a single authority, either the tutor or the text.
An Exploration of Questioning in Tutorial Interactions
Borrowed questions (LQ 2A) illustrate learners' inability to set boundaries on textual knowledge or focus on relevant information. They indicate learners' use of blurred and sweeping perception. According to Feuerstein blurred and sweeping perception reflects "a poverty of details or their lack of clarity, a poor quality of sharpness, an imprecise definition of borders and an incompleteness of the data necessary for proper distinction and description" (1980: 76). These kinds of questions characterise underprepared learners questioning in relation to text.
'Perplexity' underlies these questions, providing the impetus for asking (Dillon, 1986).
Thus, these types of questions' illustrate that the learner has at least some
understanding, even if that understanding is simply the knowledge that they do not adequately grasp the topic, leading to 'perplexity' and the formulation of a question.
This kind of question does however elicit teaching from the tutor. These are often posed as sweeping questions that demand some 'limit setting' or narrowing response from the tutor, for example:
"Patrick: can you explain for me the details of the Catastrophism?
Tutor 1:Ok, Catastrophism.11
These questions may be posed as :1) How questions: How does Mendel's theory relate to Darwin's theory? This kind of question could reveal an underlying inability to conceptualise the relationship between these two theories; however, it could also reveal an inauthentic questions, one that the learner has 'borrowed' from the tasks. 2) Why questions: Why do we study evolution if we want to be psychologists? (What's the relationship between evolutionary theory and psychology)? These kinds of questions can only be fully appreciated when submitted to deeper, more meaningful qualitative analysis.
An Exploration of Questioning in Tutorial Interactions
TUTOR RESPONSES:
TUTOR RESPONSE (T.R) DEFINITION CATEGORY 1: