Tutors and students

The word "tutor" is used in many ways across education, ranging from private tutors giving extra teaching to individual pupils or students through to being an alternative name for a housemaster or housemistress overseeing potentially up to a hundred different pupils in some schools. The focus can vary from academic to pastoral support though many straddle the two roles.

Within the Open University a "tutor" is assigned to a number of students on an individual module. Most directly they mark some of the assignments (literally the "Tutor Marked Assignments" and the "End of Module Tutor Marked Assignments"). They are there to offer direct support and advice to the student, which isn't always taken up. They often give advice and support to all their students through the online Tutor Group Forums, as well as reading and commenting on some of the posts students may put there as they discuss the material. And they can give individual advice which is available through emails and scheduled phone calls.

The tutors also run "tutorials", online sessions where a tutor takes students through a portion of the course material. However, there is no requirement for students to attend the ones taken by their own tutor, though if one's schedule allows it, it can be helpful to go to some of theirs to get more direct support. Each module has multiple tutorials covering the same material, offering different times to attend, and not every tutor takes one of every particular version. So it's not unusual to go to tutorials taken by several different tutors over the course of the module.

It's different from a single student physically going to meet a tutor for a one-on-one session but, as previously discussed, the method of Open University study is now rather different from the days depicted in Educating Rita.

Tutors are assigned just before the formal start of a module. At the point I'm writing this, I've just received details of my tutor for one module, someone I've not directly encountered on any previous module. Meanwhile, I await for my tutor on my other current module to be assigned. We'll see how each module goes.

(Image created with Microsoft 365 Copilot.)