It's certainly hard. I love to teach & help, but most students don't view other students' input as collaborative or helpful. I've frequently experienced cases where a student asked a question and it was obvious (to me anyway) what that student was missing or misunderstanding. Then, it becomes obvious that the teacher doesn't understand the miscommunication. But if I step in to synchronize, such that neither party is speaking past each other, then the student views me as a know-it-all trying to show off and the teacher views me as trying to undermine his authority.
Ultimately, I gave up trying to help unless I know both the teacher and the student personally.
Sure they can. I try to leverage the better students in exactly this way. We're often encouraged to engage students in this way (there is usually a seminar about it at least semi-annually).
>Why is it that the relationship between an engaged student and a teacher is an individual one?
FERPA, And I think that's mostly the right way to do things. Instructors shouldn't make direct references to other students, even though it is often impossible not to.
Why not? I hosted working sessions for everyone in my software engineering class to work on their projects. The number of people who ran into similar bugs and were able to say "Oh, yeah, you have it configured wrong. Here, let me show you" was actually pretty amazing.
Make sure to clear it with the professor, invite him to come by, make it clear nobody is straight copying or anything. But collaborative effort should be encouraged, not reprimanded.
This is entirely counterproductive. There is no good reason to have that attitude since the number of spoils (a grade of "A") are not limited.