1st June 2018 9:00
By Blue Tutors
We ask our tutors to teach according to Tutoring Standards’ Pedagogy, but sometimes there is a criticism of the method because it assumes that the student has had access to the material and already tried to understand it. However, tutors are often faced with a situation where the student wants to learn something for the first time, and then the tutoring method doesn’t really work.
Obviously we’re dealing with semantics, but what people normally mean by a ‘teacher’, particularly when referring to school students, is a classroom teacher; someone who stands in front of a group of students and speaks for an extended period of time, maybe asking questions and trying to engage the students, but essentially it is a lecture. A tutor shouldn’t really spend time ‘explaining’ to a student, the lesson is so much better when the tutor can ask questions which the student is capable of answering, and the student develops understanding by doing that.
Of course, during a lesson, a topic might come up which the student literally has no idea about. Ideally the solution is to move on to something else and ask the student to learn that topic before the next lesson. However, that might not be possible and in that case, the tutor becomes a teacher. In this situation it’s helpful to explain something as clearly and concisely as possible, and then leave the student to think about it/attempt a question. A good tactic is to use the bathroom, or make a drink and by the time the tutor comes back the student will have had time to contemplate the ideas.
It is really important to guard against explaining topics which the student has the capability to understand already. Realising that an explanation is useful in one unusual scenario, doesn’t mean a tutor should try and explain all the time. I think, as tutors, we sometimes forget the way we understood ideas, which was by taking time to think about those ideas by ourselves, not by having someone lecture at us, however clear that explanation may be. Tutors need to remember to tutor in the way they learnt themselves, not tutor what they themselves know.