18th February 2013 9:00
By Blue Tutors
We had an interesting situation recently where a tutor emailed to complain about his assessment. I say complain, it was more that he was keen to defend himself. The tutor was accepted, but on the lowest score possible to pass the assessment, and he felt that we hadn’t got a fair impression of his tutoring ability. It was strange, because a lot of what he said was valid; that 10 minutes isn’t enough time to begin a proper relationship with a student, and ideally a first lesson is an introduction so that both tutor and student can understand what the other expects from the lessons. I’ve never made any excuses about that, but we’re very clear about the things we aren’t seeking to test in the assessment instructions.
The trouble with the tutor’s assessment was that he spoke for the whole 10 minutes about the subject he intended to cover, and our assessor kept expecting the tutor to ask a question about the subject, but never did. The tutor said that he genuinely intended to ask questions, but felt he had to get the ‘introduction’ out of the way first, and, for me, this highlights a fundamental misunderstanding about the best way to tutor. If you feel that you have to communicate 10 minutes worth of knowledge before asking your student a question then either the chosen topic is too advanced for that student, or you should have asked your student to read that information him/herself.
I like the analogy with a board game. How do most of us learn to play a board game? Do we have someone read all the instructions, or do we make sure everyone understands the aim of the game, and then learn the rules as we go along? I think the answer is obviously the latter, and that’s why whenever you play Monopoly, Risk or Trivial Pursuit, in any group there will be 2-3 different sets of rules.
No one wants to sit and listen to their tutor talking for 10 minutes, and even if the student is able to follow what the tutor has said, and remember it all, there is no way that the student can do that, and develop his/her understanding at the same time.