RAPPORT
Issue 5 (August 2020)
schedule at home and go through
the Plan to finish the required
assessments. Tutorial meetings
offered me reassurance that there is
someone here if I need help. [S13]
Support provided by the tutor during the
tutorial meetings helped students stay 'on
track':
In the beginning, students did not
think they would need help at all.
They thought they could manage by
themselves. In the middle session,
they thought they were on track, but
in the end session, they actually
could see that they would have
preferred more follow-up sessions
during the semester to stay on
track…[the tutorial meeting] gave us
the opportunity to keep them on track
and provide them with support as
soon as they need it. [T1]
T2 was also of the view that the tutorial
meetings gave valuable support:
Some indicated that the workload
was too big for them… Others said
that they are having trouble studying,
so we looked at study methods to
address this issue. We also
discussed resume building items
such as volunteer work at local
schools offering their assistance to
teachers or the school or sporting
clubs. I gave them ideas to develop a
study plan to assist them with their
study habits and discussed their
progress in the following meetings.
[T2]
Tutorial meetings also gave the students
the freedom to push themselves
academically and direct their learning. At
the same time, the teacher was able to
monitor the progress of individual students
closely and help them with any problems
early during the course.
The importance of the interaction between
the teacher and the student in promoting
increased classroom engagement is well
established in the literature (Nguyen,
Cannata & Miller, 2018). Both teacher
respondents agreed that teachers have a
significant role in facilitating learning and
engagement and that the students
engaged in their studies more because of
the tutorial meetings:
As students were aware that we will
ask them about their progress, they
would discuss issues as they arise
which allowed us to provide support
earlier on. Through the meetings, we
were able to identify learning
difficulties with some students and
were able to offer support as an early
intervention rather than leaving the
student to slip through and not
achieve. [T1]
Concerning the effectiveness of the tutorial
meetings, T2 noted:
From the teacher view, it helped us
to identify the students that might fall
behind early on. We were able to
apply early intervention to fix the
issue before it becomes a problem. It
gave the students a confidential
environment to seek help and for us
to address their concerns as soon as
possible. For students, they were
very happy and appreciative to the
discussions we had with them. [T2]
This suggests that the tutorial discussion
not only excited the students, it also
engaged them in their study more than
previous semesters. T1 further added:
I found this study very interesting as
it showed me the positive side of
how more interactions with students
can help them more focused and
improves their engagements in their
study.
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