Setting the standard: Quality Learning and Teaching with Sessional Staff Academic aspirations amongst sessional tutors in a New Zealand University (original) (raw)
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Academic aspirations amongst sessional tutors in a New Zealand University
Journal of University Teaching and Learning Practice
In New Zealand, as in many other western societies, the higher education system has become an increasingly less secure place in which to work, and over 40 per cent of those teaching in New Zealand higher education are sessional staff of some kind. Our university in New Zealand has long relied on parttime paid tutors, many of whom are students themselves, to deliver part of the teaching in large courses. These tutors work with groups of students facilitating their learning in workshops, seminars, laboratories and a variety of other teaching environments. We have tracked the experiences of tutors over a significant period of time, and surveys of tutors’ experiences since 2007 reveal that the majority of respondents hold tight to the hope of a future academic career. They regard tutoring as good preparation for an academic career, and many report being even more committed to pursuing an academic career since beginning tutoring. How can we best support tutors to navigate their way into ...
Tutors and tutorials: students' perceptions in a New Zealand university
Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, 2009
Students are considered to be the main 'customers' in universities and polytechnics and increasingly they seek to have their needs met. This is one of the main reasons for persistent calls for the improvement of teaching in higher education. Tutors play an important role in the delivery of undergraduate education, although they are often perceived as a 'neglected' or 'invisible' group. This paper assesses students' perceptions of tutors and the factors that contribute to their learning in a New Zealand university. Survey questionnaires were administered to management students at the end of their course, to gather information on their perceptions of tutor effectiveness and to reflect on their overall tutorial experiences. Quantitative and qualitative analyses were undertaken of the data collected. The results supported the initial hypotheses that the learning environment, positive and constructive feedback and stimulating tutorials improve student learning and lead to higher levels of student satisfaction with their learning experiences at university.
Is tutor training worth it? Acknowledging conflicting agenda.
Our data supports the assertion that a tutor training program can successfully engage our “future colleagues” in reflecting on their teaching and shift their practices to a student-centred perspective. However, many sessional staff either do not undertake such training or do not complete it. We suspect that this lack of participation is caused by a raft of pressures and agenda in the career paths of the postgraduate students, many of whom serve as our sessional staff. Understanding the factors that are impeding participation is critical in creating a positive shift in attitudes with respect to teaching and learning practices not only among the trainees but within our discipline culture -- science. Reflecting critically on the institutional climate and our objective to change the way that science academics view teaching and learning has left us with serious questions about the value of what we are doing in this training program.
Research in Post-Compulsory Education, 2015
There is a dearth of literature on Access to Higher Education (AHE) tutors, which this paper addresses. Tutors play an important part in constructing emotional and academic support for students. Understanding their constructions of professional identity and their views of the students they teach helps to explain the learning environments they create. The empirical qualitative data comes from a study of AHE students' and tutors' views of their experiences on AHE courses that was collected in seven rural and urban AHE-providing institutions in the East Midlands of England in 2012-2013. It was analysed using open or inductive coding to reflect the emphases given in their interviews by participants. Emerging findings suggest that tutors' commitment to 'second chance learning' arose, in part, from their own biographies and recognition of the disempowerment experienced by AHE students who were often economically disadvantaged and had had negative experiences of schooling and/or a period of work before joining the course. Tutors' sense of agency and identity and the cultures on AHE courses were negotiated each year through getting to know the students, meeting their extensive demands for support, directing their teaching and learning experiences and contesting the institutional contexts of the courses.
Preparing tutors to hit the ground running: Lessons from new tutors' experiences.
The Institutes for Educational Research, 2013
Tutor development is an essential part of academic staff development, yet is comparatively under-researched. This article examines what tutors value as most and least important in a program. Using data from more than 300 participants in three years, and using the dimensions or worth, merit and success as an analytical framework, the article illustrates some of the perceptions of new tutors of a training program in a business and economics faculty. Results indicate that tutors find the opportunity to interact with fellow new tutors and learn from more experienced tutors most valuable and the feedback following teaching observation most helpful. The article by rethinking such training programs and offers suggestions on how to capitalise on the peer connections that exist in tutor development programs which may be of interest to staff responsible for academic development policy and practice decisions.
Educational Studies in Mathematics
Drawing on the commognitive framework, we construe the secondary-tertiary transition (STT) as a distinctive element in the pedagogical discourses of various communities. Our interest rests with university tutors in light of the emergent recognition of their impact on undergraduates’ mathematics learning in many tertiary contexts worldwide. We aim to understand the roles of STT communication in tutors’ reflections on incidents that took place in their tutorials. Our participants were undergraduate students in the advanced stages of their mathematics degrees in a large New Zealand university and who were enrolled in a mathematics education course. Throughout the semester, the participants led tutorial sessions for first-year students and wrote reflections on classroom incidents that drew their attention. Our data corpus consisted of 58 reflections from 38 tutors collected over four semesters. The analysis revealed that STT communication featured in tutors’ descriptions of classroom in...
Teaching Academics to Teach: About Pedagogy
2013
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A self study of a higher education tutor : how can I improve my practice?
2004
This thesis is a self-study of a tutor in higher education committed to practice improvement. It is presented as a study of singularity and an example of first person education action research. It is epistemologically and methodologically distinct in that it is based on my values as an educator and ideas about what constitutes loving and life-affirming educational practice. The aim of this thesis is to present a storied account of my inquiry, in which I explore what it means to live my values in practice. Through descriptions and explanations of my practice, this thesis unveils a process of action and reflection, punctuated by moments when I deny or fail to live my values fully in practice, prompting the iterative question “How do I improve my practice?”; the reflective process enabling me to better understand my practice and test out that understanding with others in the public domain. My claim to originality is embodied in the aesthetics of my teaching and learning relationships, ...