Pixel International Conferences

Tutorials substantially support university teaching in Germany. In chemistry their purposes vary from providing students with mentored settings to recapitulate the contents of previous lectures in small groups, to supervised seminars with the focus on laboratory work. This academic form of teaching is usually led by students of higher semesters as group leaders, so-called tutors. The design of the learning arrangement lies in the hands of the tutors, who usually have little teaching experience and at most basic knowledge regarding chemistry didactics. Hence, the problem arises, that most tutors often lack learning-effective and student-centered methods as well as understanding of their own role as tutors. As a result, the imitation of a lecturer-centered form of teaching can be observed, although the tutorials should rather focus on active knowledge processing and practice. It becomes clear that the tutors need to be prepared for their particular work in order to avoid reality shock in teaching as well as strengthen their role as learning guides.
The purpose of this paper is therefore to introduce a concept for the training of tutors and an according basic module. This basic module includes the following targets: (1) clarifying the understanding of the tutors’ roles (2) facilitating a change of perspectives between the different roles (3) getting to know and experiencing student-centered teaching/learning methods (4) imparting relevant didactic aspects (such as the Johnstone Triangle) (5) refining the ability to analyze characteristic types of students to highlight the importance of classroom management.

Keywords: Tutor School, Professionalization, University Teaching, Learning Guide, Student-Centered Methods;