SMS scnews item created by Stephan Tillmann at Tue 2 Feb 2016 1325
Type: Info
Distribution: World
Expiry: 1 Feb 2017
Auth: tillmann@p710.pc (assumed)

# Creating tute sheets for boardtutorials

Dear All,

I’ve been asked to share my algorithm for creating tute sheets for boardtutorials last
semester, as well as the workflow during the semester.  My experience with MATH1004 was
that it wasn’t much extra work, but, of course, more effort could have gone into it...

From the existing tute and problem sets for MATH1004 (plus very few extra questions that
I made up as needed) I created:

- A sheet with pre-tute exercises (2-3 exercises, intended to be done straight after
lectures; usually just very simple starters, so students are up to date and can feel
prepared for the tute).  This was one place where I created new questions from time to
time, as they were intended to be simpler than the tute questions.

- A sheet with tutorial exercises (varying number based on estimate of time; selection
often involved choosing two parts of a question from the existing tute or problem sets
that had five very similar parts).  The main intellectual difficulty was to decide which
questions from the existing tute or problem sets would encourage discussion and group
work, or to supply such questions.  At times these were more conceptual and at times
more technical, and both types seemed to work well.

- A problem set (all that was left over: the unused whole or partial questions from the
existing tute or problem sets, so no exercise from previous years was discarded).

I usually made these sheets a week at a time, but later in the semester sometimes did a
batch of three or four weeks.  Having created the sheets, the workflow then was:

(0.)  Print the tutorial sheets and place them in a pigeon hole in the mail room.

(1.)  Post the sheet with "pre-tute exercises" before the lectures, so that I could tell
students at the end of a lecture to do this or that problem at home.

(2.)  Post solutions to the "pre-tute exercises" before the tutes.

(3.)  Each tutor hands out tute sheets in their tutes.

(4.)  Post tute sheets, solutions and problem sets after the last tute.  This usually
coincided with posting the pre-tute exercises (1.)

(5.)  Keep a record of which tute sheets were a bit too short and which a bit too long,
to make adjustments next year, plus feedback on exercises (if there was any) from tutors
or students.

Cheers, Stephan


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