The role of the tutor in the Lifelong Learning Sector Essay Example for Free

The role of the tutor in the Lifelong Learning Sector Essay There are many facets to the role of the tutor within this diverse learning sector and the responsibility and commitment required from the tutor is of the highest. Analysis of the role of the tutor needs to start firstly with†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ the tutor! Although qualified to deliver material on a specialised subject, to teach that subject effectively requires strong personal commitment from the tutor. The tutor needs to be committed to a path of delivering excellence in all areas to the pupils and this can only be achieved if the tutor sets high standards in the first place. This is so important as to be quoted in the overarching standards document introduced by Lifelong Learning UK in 2007 titled â€Å"New professional standards for teachers, tutors and trainers in the lifelong learning sector, Domain A: professional standards and practice† (LLUK2007, pg3). Page 2 To achieve high standards in their own personal work, a tutor must be prepared to maintain a programme of continual professional development enabling continual learning to take place within their own subject matter and the peripheries of that subject. This ensures that only the most up to date information is conveyed to the pupils and maintains relevancy in the latest subject matter. However, â€Å"The key purpose of the teacher is to create effective and stimulating opportunities for learning through high quality teaching that enables the development and progression of all learners. † (LLUK 2007, pg2) and it is within this statement that three key words exist: effective, stimulating and development. The tutor needs to be mindful of these words when constructing, creating, delivering a lesson and especially when assessing the outcomes of a lesson. Tutors are required to deliver curriculum based lessons and as such need to be able to formulate the art form that delivers quality teaching that encompasses relevant material, a delivery methodology, a means of assessing the learning and all done in such a way that measures the value of the learning. Lifelong learning pupils are extremely diverse and as such will require different teaching methods such as visual, auditory, kinaesthetic methods and all these different styles may even be required in one class. Petty (2004, p141) clearly suggests that ‘Student learning styles can be categorised in a number of ways. However, it is now thought that all students can learn in all these learning styles, and the more learning styles each learner experiences the better. ’ although later research has cast some doubt on Petty’s statements. All of this must be done whilst ensuring that every pupil feels they are treated as individuals, certainly without favouritism or discrimination. (This is a professional teaching requirement, supported by Gravels (2008) and made a requirement by the Institute for Learning (IfL) 2008. A tutor understands how to engage with each of their pupils at whatever level of teaching is relevant to that one individual, facilitating the pupil’s progress through the learning and measuring the outcomes to gauge pupil’s understanding. Measuring outcomes may be a relatively simple process done through a simple scoring system based on the number of correct answers and whilst being objective, doesn’t always show that the pupil understands the material, just they can answer questions or pass a test. So a tutor needs to be able to measure in different ways, both objectively and subjectively and this may lead to different formats of teaching and flexibility within the learning process. Now we need to look at the second part of the equation – the pupil. The prime key to a pupil’s learning is motivation and desire to achieve and a successful tutor is able to capitalise on this to allow the pupil to achieve. This was echoed by Reece and Walker who said â€Å"Motivation is a key factor to successful learning. A less able student who is highly motivated can achieve greater success that the more intelligent student who is not well motivated†. (Reece Walker, 1997. p96). In summary a pupil may be likened to an empty book with blank pages waiting to be filled and it is a symbiotic relationship between the pupil desire to succeed and the tutor’s ability to develop interesting and engaging teaching that creates the successful outcome, in other words a moving art form!