13th May 2013 9:00
By Blue Tutors
I was pleasantly surprised that in the tutor assessments last week, three people stated good lesson goals. That’s a quarter, which is massively up on the average I’ve noticed recently. I think I should take another look at the way I explain lesson goals on the website, because I’m clearly not communicating them as well as I could. Even in the tutoring course I ran last month, people weren’t setting good goals, and I had just spent the last 10 minutes trying to explain how to set them. What’s really strange is that it’s such a simple thing to do, all the tutors have to do is write down a question and say that the aim is to answer it.
Otherwise I’ve been continuing on a lot of the long-term projects I’m currently working on; discussed before on this blog, and I don’t really have anything new or exciting to add. I did spend a bit of time last week rewriting the program which administers late payment charges and interest for tutors and students who don’t pay us on time. It’s really not a fun thing for me to do, because it’s an unpleasant part of our job; when someone is trying to avoid payment. However, because I’ve streamlined so much of our code, and it’s become much easier for me to handle, I have reduced the levels of the late payment charges. Basically, one is supposed to charge a genuine estimate of loss, so the more efficient we can work, the smaller the charges. If I’m honest, it seems unlikely that anyone will ever appreciate what I’ve done, because if someone is withholding payment, he/she isn’t going to think that a late payment charge is incredibly reasonable however small it is.