How much time does a modern undergraduate get talking to a tutor?
I talked to a London University student today. He has two parts to his course. I cannot describe what they are because that would identify him and could get him into trouble. I will call them subjects A and B.
In subject A, he has no personal contact with a tutor at all. He writes essays and gets them back, marked, in his pigeon hole. He does have some contact with his 'personal tutor' in the subject. His personal tutor is supposed to see him once a term. He has been seen for ten minutes on these occasions.
Subject B is a bit better. He can have contact with a tutor if he collects his essays. That contact lasts about 10 minutes and this takes place up to four times a term. His personal tutor in this subject never sees him at all.
There is no teaching at all in the summer term, although there is some revision contact in subject B. Teaching only takes place in the other two terms.
He is approaching his third year and has embarked on his dissertation. He has contact with a dissertation supervisor. This takes place five times a term and last about 15 to 20 minutes. But rememember that this dissertation contact take place in only two and a half terms out of his nine terms at university.
His regular contact with a tutor in each term has amounted to:
Personal tutor in subject A: 10 minutes
Subject tutor in subject B: 4 x 10 minutes
Total = 50 minutes a term.
When I was an undergraduate at Oxford, I had mmore than that each week of the term.
Fifty minutes a term is not real teaching. As one tutor remarked to him. "We are not judged on our teaching. We are judged on our research papers." That is a part of why the teaching is so niggardly. But perhaps more important, tutors no longer have the time for personal contact. There are oo many students and too few tutors.
It is hard to explain to someone who has never experienced tutorials (with three or four students) just what a difference they make. If you come forward with arguments and they are questioned and taken apart by a seriously clever academic, it is a mind-developing experience.
If you just go to lectures and read books, it is not the same at all. But that is what modern British universities - even 'top' ones like London - now offer. It is sad. Is there anywhere in the world that still offers a proper university education?
Posted by James Bartholomew • Indexed in Education
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What's interesting is that in my department we have large seminar groups, so in theory you're just one of large pack -- but the vast majority of students never turn up to the seminars (just the lectures), so those few who do turn up get some good attention (although still not as good as you'd get at Oxford or UCL, based on my experience of teaching at both of those places in the 90's).
P.S. When I taught in Australia the seminars/tutorials were marked, for both attendance -- yes, attendance -- and participation, so a far greater percentage of students turned up, although that meant the really keen ones suffered from being in a much bigger group.
Posted by: Anon at August 30, 2005 08:19 PM
Another thing I should mention. As far as I'm aware, outside of Oxbridge and London it has always been standard that a student writes an essay and later collects it, marked, from a pigeon-hole. That whole writing an essay every week and presenting it in your tutorial in front of a tutor and maybe another student or two is not at all standard. What is standard is that you submit an essay and get it back amrked, with comments.
And really, while it's great value for the top students at the best places, small tutorials are of limited value for the average student (yet extremely expensive for the taxpayer), most of whom aren't the slightest bit interested in personal contact with tutors.
Then again, this sort of tutorial used to be standard at UCL, where you say this student is. I know that some London departments are cutting back on this sort of thing, because it's so expensive, which is a disappointing. Those sessions I used to run at UCL were always great -- good students who learned a lot from them.
BTW The "personal tutor" thing at places like Nottingham is not supposed to be anything like the Oxford tutorial set-up. It's more for general development and problems (and couldn't be anything else, given the large number of students each personal tutor has). And in my experience the students resent having to have such meetings much more than the tutors. I suggest that if Gareth really wants to talk to his tutor he schedule an appointment with him or her.
Posted by: Anon at August 30, 2005 08:38 PM
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This is true. I'm studying Politics at Nottingham, I've just completed my first year and I have only met my personal tutor once for less than five minutes.
Posted by: Gareth Russell at August 28, 2005 11:22 PM