Talk:Peer tutoring/Archive

Thoughts on the structure and purpose
What a rapid start! There are lots of directions happening, plenty of scope for linking in other resources. But I'm wondering - is this starting to look more like a text book (AKA Wikibooks)? Could it be more like a teaching and learning guide that points out to good reference rather than being a good reference? I think it will make for a lot less work and will focus the purpose some more - to help people learn how to be good peer tutors - rather than to teach people how to be peer tutors, a subtle but significant difference don't you think?

So I think it would be good to bring the pages down to a manageable size, and to keep the content ultra simple. For example... the "Course Page" (the main page for Peer Tutoring) simply introduces the intent of the resource, and then lists the learning objectives. The learning objectives link to their own separate page (a bit like what you have done) but in themselves are not much more than detailed explanations of that particular objective. At the bottom (or top) of this new page are links to "library of resources" AND "learning activities". These two pages are subpages to the learning objective. The library lists good resources that inform the objective (a google video, a reading, a picture, a chart, a book... and so on).. The "Learning activities" are also subpages to the learning objective that are a range of activities for a teacher or a learner to use to move through content and exercises and achieve the learning objective.

So! there is:


 * The course page that links out to all the..
 * Learning objectives - which are more explicitly described and have 2 subpages...
 * Resources (Learning objective/Resources) that is an always up to date library of references and useful bits
 * Activities (Learning objective/Activities) that are activities that draw from the resources page and step people through information and communication that helps them achieve the learning objective



Hope I'm making sense. I think your resource will benefit from this structure. It will become simple to use, easy to maintain, and more reusable to other projects...

Regards, --Leighblackall 10:56, 27 May 2007 (CEST)
 * Hi Leigh. Yes I agree with your comments and was starting to think the same thing about the wikibook look of it. It has come to be this way because I was initially copying and pasting word documents, but I agree a page of links to eletronic resources is a much better way to go. I have started doing more of that now I have run out of word documents. As this is a new course for me I haven't thought up the activities yet, but need to do this soon! Did you see I have included the NZQA unit standard for time management - this is taught in a number of schools at OP so could be of use to several teachers here. I will be finding activities for this US soon.

Cheers, --HelenL 06:49, 28 May 2007 (CEST)


 * Leigh, i love this idea as it is articulated though the graphic ... but it's just too hard to read mate! Could you possibly redo in a bit more readable fashion. I know it's a lot to ask but I think it's a really important idea that needs well... readability/reusability. brent 04:27, 29 May 2007 (CEST)

An excellent pilot for learning design?
Leigh & HelenL,

I really like the idea of developing resources for peer tutoring - COOL! At the same time this is an excellent project development for us to trial some of the learning design tools we're developing on WikiEducator over here. Are you guys willing to give this a bash? I could pop in now and again to offer a few tips and ideas. I was a learning designer in one of my former lives.

Getting a structure that is going to work for the target audience is the most difficult part of the design process - I see that you have many good ideas bubbling in terms of the content areas you want to cover.

A good place to start is simply to brainstorm a list of bullet points of the things you think peer tutors should be able to do (your own unit standard if you like - which fits in rather nicely with your schema.)

Step 1

This is what I'd do - start a new Learning design template using this feature Decision guide feature. Try your best to answer the questions - I admit they need a lot of refinement - so authentic feedback from real designers in practice would be great.

Step 2

Insert the following template on your main content page with the following syntax.

Step 3

Click on the start content design link on the LD template - and brainstorm the list of things you think peer tutors need to do in order to be good peer tutors.

Step 4

Once we have the brainstorm list done - we can look to see if there are any natural categories. This will help us decide on the best teaching structure.

Chat to you soon. --Jim 01:20, 30 May 2007 (CEST)


 * Let's have a skype conference==
 * Hey Brent, Hellen and I are working together on this this morning. We have tried to look into the directions you are pointing, and have a bit of an idea, but think it would be good if we can talk together about this some time.--Jim 01:20, 30 May 2007 (CEST)

Trialling Design Templates
I have inserted the template and because I have basically been through several days of brainstorming already before arriving at the current design I have gone to a history page and copied that in. It contains all of my original ideas which are no longer visible unless you sift through the history pages. Can you tell me why the start content page opens in the edit view instead of the article? --Helen 12:42, 31 May 2007 (CEST)