Search results

Many universities run Writing Centers to provide support for students wishing to improve their academic literacy. These centers are ideal venues for peer tutoring, which may benefit both student-tutors (through tutoring skills development), and those tutored (through opportunities to discuss writing with a supportive peer). In the context of a university in the GCC region, peer tutors, prior to working, must complete required Communication courses. The syllabuses reflect student-centered and collaborative post-process writing approaches, where scaffolding is emphasized over direction, and word-by-word instructor correction of student writing is de-emphasized. Peer tutors also undergo preparation aimed at equipping them with an understanding of the rationale for these approaches and the skills needed to adapt them to tutoring. Given these experiences, the researchers set out to determine whether tutors are able to articulate such understandings and apply them to tutoring. Interconnected interpretative methods were deployed, including tutoring observation, consultation-conversation analysis and semi-structured interviews with tutors. Results indicate that tutors have significant recent experience of non-directive writing classes and may be aware of the rationale and benefits of such approaches. However, in their tutoring, content appears to be transferred from their most recent experiences but their style relies on instruction predominated by telling, explaining, demonstrating and directing, reflecting formative experience at school. The relationship between tutors’ experience, preparation, articulation and practice is explored, and recommendations are made to enhance Writing Center practices, in line with the concept of a constructively-aligned instruction system where all components address the same agenda and support each other.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role and contribution of tutors to property education. Using the theory of tutor performance which outlines six behaviours which may positively influence student outcomes, this paper considers how tutors can maximise student learning and engagement in tutorials.

This research used a mixed methods approach including student evaluations of teaching (SETs), a survey of students and reflexive journals of a tutor in property education.

This research found that conscious adoption of the behaviours recommended under the theory of tutor performance and informed by further education in the form of a Graduate Certificate in Higher Education resulted in significant improvement of SET results. Student survey responses showed the influence of “real life” experience, amongst other things, in underpinning their learning.

While this research has limitations, in terms of number of responses and restriction to a single tutor, the findings indicate that tutors may have a significant influence on the engagement of students in property education. The use of the tutor's own professional experience and the use of real life scenarios within the delivery of course content may serve to ensure graduates have a greater capacity to meet employers’ expectations.

This research brings originality to the subject of property education by exploring issues in property education from the most fundamental level, that of the tutor. This level of analysis is enhanced by the newness of the tutor in question to academia which highlights property education with new eyes, unencumbered with years of routine teaching experience. The incorporation of reflexive methods with a survey and SETs provides rich experience‐filled data that considers the process of property education and the ways in which purposeful skills enrichment of the tutor and the student may achieve greater outcomes for the property profession and industry.

This paper aims to explore the introduction of a new experience‐based learning process in the learning and teaching of human resource development (HRD) within a professionally accredited curriculum in a UK University.

An action enquiry approach is taken, and qualitative data gathered over a full academic year from tutors and students are analysed to examine how those involved made sense of and learned about HRD.

Influences on the experience of an innovative HRD pedagogy are identified as: assessment processes and expectations; relationships and behaviours within the learning and teaching process; the experienced emotions of those involved; and the extent to which students feel clarity about what is expected.

The qualitative nature of the data and the focus on one particular UK institutional taught module limits the generalisability; in particular, the experience of full‐time students or those involved in courses that focus exclusively on HRD outside of UK are not incorporated.

Attention to assessment processes is an essential pre‐requisite to any pedagogic innovation, as is effective and transparent team‐working by tutors and careful thought about tutor behaviours in settings where experienced emotions and relationships directly affect the innovative process.

The inherent tension between the constructivist and exploratory HRD curriculum and the requirement for “performative clarity” in HRD pedagogy is explored. Experienced emotions and relationships are shown to mediate a student‐centred and critically reflexive HRD pedagogy, something that is currently insufficiently recognised in much of the literature.

What happens when computer software is designed to replace the teacher and the human role is to service the relationship between the software and the learner? Specifically, this paper aims to consider whether or not emotional labour is performed in contexts mediated by technology in the private sector.

The research is a single site, the online tutoring centre, in a large global education company in Europe servicing learners based in companies elsewhere. It is a critical case study with strategic importance for understanding the effects of the transformations to the education work afforded by a work design based on digital Taylorism. Qualitative methods are used, including observation, analysis of tutor/student e‐mail exchanges over a ten‐month period and interviews with key personnel.

It was found that in spite of the drive for standardisation and consistency, online tutors engaged in considerable levels of emotional labour, individualised in its performance along a spectrum.

The work has value in that it extends into new sites the study of digital Taylorism. In finding emotional labour in this critical case, it suggests that emotional labour will be present in less extreme cases.

The article is a useful source of information for practitioners in online learning centres, as well as researchers in the area of recruitment and training of online tutors.

The article provides insights into effects of the recruitment of underqualified people in private learning centres.

The article provides insights into an area of work‐based learning that is under‐investigated to date – i.e. the recruitment and practices of tutors in private learning centres and the role of emotional labour.

This chapter compares student and facilitator perceptions of what supports learning in teams in online environments. The authors (one Italian and one British) draw on their experiences facilitating modules in a UK-based online international professional doctorate of Higher Education with students from across the globe, as well as a two-year research project on developing best practice in supporting online international graduate students to engage in virtual learning teams. The theories underpinning the educational use of learning teams are those of constructivism and social learning, all of which suggest a facilitative role for the tutor. However, there is disagreement about what this looks like and what it means for student autonomy and facilitator presence. Many students expect greater tutor involvement, especially when teams are not functioning at an optimal level. The chapter offers both an in-depth discussion of the literature that looks at student and tutor perspectives on virtual team learning,and a summary of findings from a mixed methods research project on students’ needs and tutors’ practice while working in dispersed learning teams. Finally, the chapter draws out implications for the development of e-pedagogy to support learning and engage international learners in online contexts at the graduate level.

Student success and attrition, especially in the first year, has received increasing attention both in South Africa and internationally. The purpose of this article is to explore peer tutoring as a possible approach to facilitate first‐year student success in Financial Accounting.

The perspectives of tutors and students attending tutor sessions (tutees) were investigated by means of questionnaires, which were complemented by an analysis of the tutees' performance in the subject compared with their participation in the tutor programme. Two cohorts of students (2008/2009) were included in the study.

The results suggest that the tutees experienced the tutor programme positively and were in favour of similar initiatives in their second year of study. The tutors thought the programme had beneficial consequences for tutees. Regular attendance of tutor sessions seemed to benefit at least some students, even though it is difficult to determine causality. English‐speaking students benefited from attending the tutor sessions.

The results are not generalisable beyond the scope of the particular institution, but provide guidance for other institutions considering a similar intervention.

The implementation of a tutor programme entails investments in terms of both money and time. This paper considers the benefits derived from these investments, specifically in an Accounting and South African context.

The purpose of this paper is to examine best practices in supporting tutors in academic quality within private training enterprises (PTEs) in New Zealand and to make practical recommendations for people working in the tertiary education sector.

A hypothesis is proposed, which is then tested using a case study examining what support from the quality assurance section of a PTE’s tutors perceive to be important. The hypothesis is that additional feedback is required for tutors. The results are compared with those on the literature on quality assurance to see if there is consistency in themes.

The primary themes that emerged from interview and survey data were that tutors with more than three years of experience feel they would benefit from more regular, clear and constructive feedback and that these tutors need support during any programme-related changes.

This research highlights that the quality of feedback is crucial in education and a worthwhile area of further investigation. Limitations include the size of the sample of interviewees and that the study was based on only one organization in New Zealand. Future research is also suggested, which could include data from other tertiary educational institutions.

The paper concludes with a practical overview of “dos” and two “don’ts” identified from the case study. The objective is to share recommendations in a practical and useable way with other practitioners.

This account of an inquiry into internal quality assurance processes and outcomes offers transferable learnings to tutors, academic quality assurance teams, employers and other stakeholders across the education sector.

The conclusion drawn from this is case study is that educational organisations should ensure that anyone tasked with providing feedback to tutors is first coached themselves; otherwise, the feedback can be unhelpful.

This chapter relates to identifying the experience, skills and competencies of those responsible for operationalizing and developing transnational education (TNE) partnerships. Despite the growth of TNE internationally, little detailed attention has been paid to these individuals, often called academic liaison (or link) tutors. They are good examples of “boundary spanners” (Williams, 2013, p. 17) or “third space professionals” (Whitchurch, 2008, p. 378). Using concepts associated with “distributed leadership” (Gronn, 2002, p. 423) to explain leadership in collaborative provision as distributed practice, the research represented in the chapter made use of activity theory (Engeström, 1987) to identify the range of contextual factors that an academic liaison tutor needs to take into account in developing a TNE partnership. Findings indicate that an academic liaison tutor needs experience of working in complex environments, in-depth understanding of organizational procedures, the ability to manage power differentials, sophisticated communication and interpersonal skills, the ability to create and lead a cultural context for learning and development, change management and the ability to resolve difficulties. These factors provide the foundation for suggestions for staff recruitment, development and training.

Explores the origins, value, impact and likely development of student tutoring in the UK, whereby students from universities and colleges volunteer to work alongside teachers for an afternoon a week over a period of at least ten weeks, helping pupils with their studies, raising their aspirations and encouraging them to go on to further and higher education. Notes a dramatic expansion of this programme in recent years, involving more than 180 institutions of higher and further education. Highlights how CSV Learning Together, following the initiative of BP, has established a nationwide team of development workers to implement the movement nationwide. Confirms, from initial research, the value of the initiative to both pupils and their student tutors. Foresees that the new directions in student tutoring will spread the work increasingly in further education and encourage schools to cascade peer‐supported learning among their own pupils.