RAPPORT
Issue 5 (August 2020)
discussions with colleagues really
stimulating and valuable, and will
continue to use those relationships to
further my thinking about personal
tutoring. I have also really enjoyed
and benefitted from my own reading
and thinking in the area.
On the flip side, I have really
struggled to give the course (and the
portfolio) the attention and time it
deserves, and which I wanted to do.
It unfortunately became one of many
contrasting demands on my time and
my mental energy, and my interest
and personal commitment is
outweighed by my responsibility to
meet marking deadlines, attend
exam boards etc. That has been
frustrating, and I know that I haven't
got as much out of the experience as
I could have done.
Not only has this participant developed
their thinking and practice about tutoring.
They have also developed and extended
their community of learning about tutoring.
And they now know first-hand what it can
be like to be on ‘the other side’, the
student side, with all the complexities and
pressures that brings.
An External Examiner’s
perspective
The External Examiner has a particular
perspective on a course. They are a
critical friend. They should not, except
under extraordinary circumstances, mark
or assess the work of students. They are
external examiner to the processes and
judgements of the course.
One comment from my external examiner
reports may be helpful:
The best of the work was superb; in
action, in description, in analysis and
in appropriate critical use of theory;
and well capable of further
development towards publication.
The least good of the passing work
was acceptable as meeting the
standard of the award. Where
candidates were referred, the basis
of referral was clear and explicit,
referring to particular outcomes not
yet achieved.
These may seem simple and obvious
qualities for a course, and in particular for
its assessment processes. Essentially,
they say that the course is being run
properly. But it is always good, and not
universally possible, to say these things
about a course.
A particular delight of this course team,
was, of course, the people. It was
fascinating to read the work of course
participants, to see them critically and
thoughtfully engaging with issues and
practices and literature about tutoring. It
was great to see the high-quality support
which they received, from tutors who, of
course, would be taken as exemplars of
good tutoring practice whether they
wanted to be or not. (They were!) It was
good to see the extensive, thoughtful,
feedback provided to participants, always
with the intention of helping the participant
to improve their work in their own
particular setting. And it was good to see
the rigour applied to the making of the
final assessment judgements, going well
beyond the inevitable initial gut response
to a piece of work and checking
methodically whether, and in what ways, it
met each of the outcomes and the
assessment criteria.
Futures for tutoring
At the time of writing, summer 2020,
Higher Education is going through the
biggest and swiftest transformation I have
ever seen, essentially jumping online.
Much of the attention has gone into
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