Tutoring Practice

"If we teach today s students the way we taught yesterday's we rob them of tomorrow" (Dewey, unknown). Prediction and advocacy for change in education was made centuries ago by Educationist, Philosophers and little seem to have been done to change the way Universities teach and facilitate learning. OECD principles of learning highlights the importance of re-designing of learning environment and putting learners at the centre as critical due to rapid changes taking place in the 21st century. Thus demand educationist to re-define critical skills and abilities of citizens in the 21st century and beyond (The Nature of Learning practitioner guide, 2016)

In this page, you will taken through the tutoring practice journey of a transformed Instructional designer to a Teacher Trainer. The journey will start with the "WHY" of embarking into Teacher Trainer programme, follow by teacher trainer tutoring practice sessions I designed & organised to gain my competencies, reflection on collaborations with other teacher trainer colleagues, analyses of the training sessions, how I have achieved set objectives , feedback and feed-forward interactions from the participants and teacher trainers.

The plan was to do tutoring practice with Teacher Trainer colleagues I facilitated curriculum design and teaching models with. Unfortunately, the plans didn't materials and it was not the end of the world as I still had other colleagues willing to collaborate with me. I was happy because of their strengths and the energy they were going to bring to the tutoring session. Unfortunately, we did not have enough time for planning and that resulted in us running a little bit late with our time. I realized that the set outcomes were demanding for two days. Even though exciting but the stretched with a bit of overload. Detailed collaboration is captured in the video embedded at the analysis of the discussion section.

The video attached is an in-depth discussion, interactions, and analysis that took place on day two of the tutoring practice. It consists of Academics from different faculties (Science, Management Science, Engineering and Information Communication Technologies). The mix of different faculties is what made the discussion and tutoring practice sessions interesting.

Design Thinking infused with the Solution fluency approach was used to lead discussions, interactions and provide solutions to the participants. What stood out for me was the level of engagement among participants, willingness to learn new things and hunger for technological strategies that will respond to the challenges in the classroom. Participants came with different views about the institutional learning management system, their students, institutional processes. However, it was interesting to see participants helping one another with strategies to solve those problems.

Collaboration between myself and the other teacher trainers was amazing. I learned about the importance of open the floor and let participants be free to talk about their problems. It was also interesting how my colleague handled the issues raised from what they seem as minor up to issues that we as teacher trainers do not have control over them. I learned the importance of continuous affirmation that "as a teacher trainer you are here to do the walk with them" inspired and kept the participants at ease.

The reality is academics go through a lot and as Teacher Trainer should be willing to listen with heart and use your mind to provide solutions where you can! Planning remained as the key in everything as discussions may take other directions. A skill to drawback participants to the main agenda of the day is crucial.