Been thinking about this issue overnight and I want to get my thoughts down before I forget them.
I don't think this is a 'me' problem. I have two tutor groups in SM123. To save work I do a lot of copy and pasting. Therefore all the mass communications and generic forum postings are identical between the two groups. I do indeed have one tutor group that I am struggling to get to interact both with me and each other. But I have another tutor group that is far more interactive - where for the groupwork tutorial I had 4-5 attendees and then a similar number of video watchers.
In some respects I don't really care what students do. They're all adults, they make their own decisions about how best to use their time. I do think a lot of students, especially those who aren't actively seeking social interaction (and hence, I have to say, are more likely to be found in SM123) feel that they have enough to get through just going through the core material - which is excellent by the way. I remember being told as a third year student at Imperial that if I came across secondhand OU textbooks they were well worth buying as they were excellent. The OU actually works hard at constantly improving their teaching materials. If they were very good in the 90s you can rest assured they are now (or should be) award-winning. But I do think that physics and maths students think that tutorials are therefore not important, or at least, less important.
I'm thinking therefore that I really need to get them early. I'm going to rewrite my introductory emails and put up a bunch of stuff on the forums before the year begins about "How to best succeed in SM123". Then totally pivot the first tutorial to the first TMA. All the other (admitedly really important material) can be shoved into a pre-recorded video that can be shared with both groups - a lot of the current material is about 'Welcome newbies to the OU' and not all my students are newbies - at least most of them aren't - and a huge number are studying full-time now so they are probably getting three 'Welcome newbies to the OU' tutorials.
More thoughts on horses and water
Been thinking about this issue overnight and I want to get my thoughts down before I forget them.
I don't think this is a 'me' problem. I have two tutor groups in SM123. To save work I do a lot of copy and pasting. Therefore all the mass communications and generic forum postings are identical between the two groups. I do indeed have one tutor group that I am struggling to get to interact both with me and each other. But I have another tutor group that is far more interactive - where for the groupwork tutorial I had 4-5 attendees and then a similar number of video watchers.
In some respects I don't really care what students do. They're all adults, they make their own decisions about how best to use their time. I do think a lot of students, especially those who aren't actively seeking social interaction (and hence, I have to say, are more likely to be found in SM123) feel that they have enough to get through just going through the core material - which is excellent by the way. I remember being told as a third year student at Imperial that if I came across secondhand OU textbooks they were well worth buying as they were excellent. The OU actually works hard at constantly improving their teaching materials. If they were very good in the 90s you can rest assured they are now (or should be) award-winning. But I do think that physics and maths students think that tutorials are therefore not important, or at least, less important.
I'm thinking therefore that I really need to get them early. I'm going to rewrite my introductory emails and put up a bunch of stuff on the forums before the year begins about "How to best succeed in SM123". Then totally pivot the first tutorial to the first TMA. All the other (admitedly really important material) can be shoved into a pre-recorded video that can be shared with both groups - a lot of the current material is about 'Welcome newbies to the OU' and not all my students are newbies - at least most of them aren't - and a huge number are studying full-time now so they are probably getting three 'Welcome newbies to the OU' tutorials.