OU students: What makes a good OU tutor?

[Lcy]

I am about to start a part time post as an OU tutor / Associate Lecturer. I will have a group of about 20 students and will meet them on 5 occasions for face to face tutorials. The rest of the time we will be in contact by email / phone. A big part of my job will be marking their assignments.

I was wondering if any OU students could give me some idea of what they found useful / unhelpful about their tutors.

Many thanks

ooooh I think one of the most important things, judging from experience and reading posts in the student forums is contact. While students appreciate that many tutors are only part time and have other commitments, being able to contact you and get a speedy reply will make your students very happy!

Also, to be understanding of the various reasons that people might need and extension for a TMA.

Be warm and friendly and helpful.

Ermmm when marking, try to give lots of constructive feedback, give info on how to improve the next one etc as lots of people find that their essays just get marked with no idea on how to improve marks for next time.

Also, not all your students will be able to make it to tutorials, so a good thing to do would be to make notes on what was said, particularly if the next TMA was discussed, and email them a copy so they are not at a disadvantage.

What course will you be tutoring? Oh, and good luck, OU is fantastic!

I used to be an OU tutor (AL)! I was also a student so I think I've seen it from both sides. I agree with everything that cordonbleugh says above. Fwiw I didn't think my tutor was very good at the contact side of things - he pretty much marked the assignments and gave tutorials and that was it. I and the rest of his students certainly got the impression we were a way for him to earn a bit of extra money on top of his real job.

I also agree about notes from tutorials. I used to feel that students who couldn't make tutorials (for whatever reason) shouldn't feel they were in a worse position than those who turned up, so I would put the notes on the online tutor group conference that evening or the day after the tutorial, so people could see what we had covered. Similarly if someone had e-mailed or phoned me with a question I would often post the answer on the conference so that other students could benefit from the answer too.

If you're already thinking about these points I'm sure you'll be a good tutor. And if it's anything like it was when I started (about 8 yrs ago) the OU should send you on a training course to look at marking TMAs and many other issues connected with being a tutor, so you can learn from more experienced tutors on that.

Your TMAs will be monitored to check that your marking is in line with other tutors on your course, and I found the comments on monitored TMAs were very useful. Plus they should allocate you a mentor - a more experienced AL on the same course as you - and you should feel free to ask them whatever questions you like as they are being paid (a little) for mentoring you.

Oh and if you find you are spending a significant amount of time on questions from one or two students, you can always apply for a little bit of extra money to cover the extra time spent on them. I can't remember the terminology now but whoever is your manager will probably know about that.

Good luck!

Ooh, good luck Lcy! What course are you a tutor for? What qualifications do you need?

From a student's perspective, I agree with a lot of what cb said.

Make it clear from the start when you are contactable, and how long you it will take you to reply. When assignments need to be marked, let students know if you will be turning them around in a couple of days or whether it will be 2 weeks - it makes a difference not to have to keep checking!

Circulate a list of people in your tutor group who are happy to give out their contact details - it helps students feel less isolated.

Give as many hand-outs as you can, or suggestions of where to look for things.

Know not only the course material really well, but also the assignments, which quite often change each year and so may have teething problems.

When marking, if you conclude that a student needs to say more on one aspect, but is up to the wordcount, suggest where they can chop bits out, don't just say 'good', 'good', 'good', 'but you should have mentioned xyz too' when they are at 2000 words

At turorials, spend a bit of time on introductions, don't just plough straight into the course. Oh, and tell students a week or so in advance what the tutorial will be about.

I have had good tutors and bad. This year it is a bad one, who isn't doing any of the above lol!

Best of luck and good on you for asking - that is a good start

Thanks so much for your replies - really useful ideas. I won't say what I am doing just in case I identify myself but I will make sure I have printed off your ideas and will incorporate them into my assignments, tutorials etc... Many thanks

I'm also interested in these responses. I'm teaching my first OU course. I don't seem to have much contacgt with the students. I teach at day schools - so it's a very big group (30+) which makes introductions too difficult.

I find having a mentor very helpful.

Perhaps I could do more with the tutor group forum.

Prompt returning of TMAs.
Don;t say all the extra things that could go into a TMA without saying what could have been left out, especially if the student is right on the word count.
Be absolutely secure in your subject knowledge (should be a given) and your knowledge of the course material (surprisingly less so).
Make tutorials interesting but challenging.
Differentiate your activities if possible if the group is a large one, because you are likely to have very different students working at the full range of levels and it can be frustrating if everything is pitched either beyond your grasp or you don't feel challenged in the limited face-to-face contact you have.

Don't email 2 weeks after a cut off date & say you have been out of the country, will mark TMAs at some point!

I can wait patiently for my assignmnets to come back, it's the lack of contact that gets me more, a tutor who has turned up for 3 out of 5 tutorials, another one who cancels at the last minute. I think on the whole students understand your role as tutor is a small part of your life, communication is the important bit.

Good luck