How can I use Tutorial Designing as a Learning Activity?

The benefits of student tutorial designing is obvious. In order to teach someone else, you must truly understand the material yourself. Students must find ways to communicate their learning clearly and succinctly, as well as to break down tasks into step-by-step directions.

Tutorial designers can use audio tools, video tools, writing, and/or images to convey the “how-to” of particular task to others. Older students feel proud to be able to create tutorials for younger students.

In one example from the classroom, 7th and 8th grade students spent one day each week for most of a school year creating a wiki explaining their lessons from math class. Afterward, they reflected on the value of the process by answering these questions: “Do you think your work on the wiki contributes to your own learning?” and “Do you think your work on the wiki contributes to other students’ learning?”

Most students responded positively. Here is a sample of their comments:

• “You are reviewing what you have learned in unique ways with videos and photos.”

• “I study and learn from the wiki. It helps me study for my tests.”

• “I believe that working on the wiki helps me remember past chapters and lessons as well as the current ones. It is good to once a week have a quick refresher of what we have been doing in math class all year.”

• “Working on the wiki definitely contributes to my learning. For example, something may be confusing to me, but then I work it out step by step on the wiki and it becomes clearer.”

• “… if just a teacher is teaching students about work then those students might not get the material that was taught because it might not be out of a student perspective of learning.”

• “This website goes into detail to every little thing we have learned in math this year. It is very comprehensive. I think this will help many people in their math classes.”

Learn More… Take this course: Technology in the 21st Century Classroom

Discuss Here: What are some ways one may use tutorial designing in different subjects?