Tutor training and support

Main idea

Outline

Every year prior to the introduction of the new students at The Faculty of Humanities at SDU, we do a tutor training course for the tutors in charge of the introduction. We refer to them as the coordinating tutors.

The coordinating tutors are older students employed by the university to plan and take part in the introduction at their own study programme. We have approx. 50 coordinating tutors a year – some of them are recurrent.

The tutor training consists of 5 elements:

• 2 physical seminars (only the coordinating tutors – during the pandemic these seminars were held online)
• A course room in our LMS, Itlearning, where we share e.g. informations, articles, slides, reflections.
• Feedback on their introduction plans (from us, the facilitators of this training – the student guidance counsellors)
• A joint kickoff for all tutors – the coordinating tutors AND the volunteers (approx. 100 people)
• After the introduction we end the training with an event, were the coordinating tutors get a course certificate and exchange experiences with each other.

The main purpose of tutor training
The main purpose with tutor training is to make sure that the tutors have the necessary knowledge, aware of what we expect of them, and tools to organize the introduction. The introduction must be in line with the strategy for introduction at The Faculty of Humanities and live up to rules regarding drugs, alcohol, and behavior.

Furthermore, they are introduced to theory on First Year Experience, the role as a tutor, culture, and values specific to their programmes and feedback.

Organizers 
The administrative staff and the specific programmes handle the recruitment and employment of the coordinating tutors and volunteers.

The student guidance services handle all coordination of the tutor training and provide content.

The principles of introduction and the rules and regulation are decided on faculty and/or institutional level.

Goals

• To support the tutors self-efficacy and awareness of their role as both students and representatives.
• To introduce knowledge on how to facilitate and build a safe culture/community and acknowledge the diverse student body.
• Give feedback and training on how to be present and communicate at eye-level with new students based on the tutors’ own experiences as students.

Students involvement

We use the students’ experiences in some of the content, and we also use the work they have done as cases to give feedback on.

We are considering using former tutors as guest speakers in one of the courses, so they can share their experiences.

Success criteria

It is important that the tutor training serves as an alignment in expectations – that the tutors know what the institution expects of them, and what their exact role is. This is the main success criteria because it gives the best basis for the new students’ transition into their study programmes.

Two of the main points would have to be:
1) the combination of research-based inputs and the tutors processing it together and work it in to their study start activities, and 2) the peer-to-peer learning aspect where the tutors share pro’s and con’s, experiences and inspire each other.

Do you feel you can effectively provide the support that students require?

Would you recommend this to other institutions?

strongly agree

Evaluation

Yes, we ask the tutors/participants to fill out a form after each session, and we collect the data in a report.

We use the evaluation to ensure that the content is relevant and that it helps fulfill the main purpose.

Communication

The coordinating tutors are informed of the tutor training and the dates when they are employed. But we (the student guidance service) also send them an email to congratulate them on their new job, invite them to the tutor training and inform them on the process.

As the tutor training progress there is some communication with the tutors through the course room in our LMS – mainly updates, follow up and reminders on what’s next.

That is all handled by the student guidance service.

Timing

The spring semester – from around April to August.

Resources

Staff: Administrative staff, student guidance counsellors, head of studies

Skills: Recruitment, organization, knowledge on transitions, feedback, communication, create learning material

Time estimations:
Designing and developing content: 2-3 month (if you are starting from scratch)

Preparation: Approx. 1- 1,5 hours to set up the online platform and ½ hour per update after or prior each seminar

Physical seminars: 2x 4 hours, and 1x 3 hours

Follow up: 1x 1 hour plus time to create the course certificates

Transferability

We think it is quite easily transferable to other contexts or groups.

The form and setting are transferrable and some of the content (e.g. First Year Experience), but it would have to be updated to fit the rules and regulations and principles of introduction in another context.

The principles of introduction at The Faculty of Humanities focuses on the professional/academic community. We want the focus for the introduction to switch from a social community to a professional/academic community. And we encourage the tutors to organize their events and activities around that and to be clear on their purpose with every activity. The faculty considers the introduction to be a learning activity for the new students to participate in.