As an Academic Tutor you will be assigned a small group of tutees and you will remain the main point of contact and support for your tutees during their student journey. Academic Tuition should provide your tutees with regular opportunities to review their learning and their academic, personal, and professional development as they progress through their course. It will also enable you to get to know your tutees and build supportive relationships, between you and individual tutees, and among tutees in your tutor group.
In your role as a tutor, you are a key contact point between the student and the university. You have an important role to play in identifying students in difficulty and signposting them to appropriate sources of help and guidance. You will need to be empathetic, non-judgemental, supportive, and helpful, and try to understand (even if you do not necessarily share) the student’s point of view. At times, it may also be necessary for you to challenge students over their progress, performance, or attendance. A personal tutor who knows their tutees by name and who explains academic expectations in a way that is encouraging, and motivating can clear up the confusion and misunderstandings that can stand in the way of academic engagement.
An Academic Tutor should
- Willingly commit to providing support to their students
- Establish a good rapport and a relationship of trust with their tutees
- Engage with their tutees before their arrival at the University and meet with them in person during Welcome Week.
- Set expectations of Academic Tuition by explaining the purpose of the process to students and set appropriate ground rules and boundaries.
- Offer guidance or advice on University processes (e.g. disciplinary procedures, mitigating circumstances).
- Encourage tutees to formulate action plans for improving their academic success, personal development, career progression and employability.
- Assist tutees in interpreting the feedback they have received in formative and summative assessments, offer advice on how to improve their academic performance and help them understand general areas for improvement.
- Maintain a record of individual meetings, which should be shared with and accessible to the student.
- Conduct group tutorials, in accordance with the recommendations of the academic tuition framework , to provide students with academic and disciplinary skills that enable them to achieve a higher academic standard and encourage the development of the YSJ Graduate Attributes.
- Ensure tutees are aware of the support available to them from University support services (e.g. Student Services, ILS, etc).
- Commit to engaging with relevant training and continual improvement of their individual practice as an Academic Tutor.
An Academic Tutor must
- Meet individually with each tutee two times during each year of their course, normally once per semester for a full time undergraduate programme
- Understand their own limitations and be prepared to refer students to expert advice.
- Assume responsibility for scheduling and arranging both group and individual tutorial meetings and communicating arrangements for these to students.
- Clarify how s/he can be contacted (through email, telephone, office hours, etc.)
- Proactively contact tutees who miss any meetings, to encourage participation and ensure that the student is not experiencing any issues which may affect their academic success.
- Answer emails within three working days.
- Be available to meet with tutees if requested, within seven days of an appointment request, to help them to overcome problems and concerns.
- Provide a genuine and informative reference for a prospective employer or postgraduate study.
An Academic Tutor cannot
- Know everything
- Be a counsellor or health advisor, but should signpost tutees to Student Services specialists
- Be a financial adviser, but should signpost tutees to the Funding Advice team
- Be a Careers adviser, but should signpost tutees to the Careers and Placements
- Solve accommodation problems
- Make changes to a student’s curriculum or course of study.
- Provide detailed subject-specific guidance on every aspect of tutees’ academic studies
- Provide specific feedback on each assessment for tutees
A full description of the roles and responsibilities of an Academic Tutor can be found in the Academic Tutoring syllabus.