In this extra post, Dr David Quinn, Lecturer in the School of Mathematics, shares his experience of supporting tutors and demonstrators, from informal support like peer support, to more formal routes such as peer observation and the courses offered by Institute for Academic Development: Introduction to Academic Practice (IntroAP) or the Edinburgh Teaching Award (EdTA).
We want our tutors and demonstrators to be prepared from day one, and to be able to continuously and efficiently grow within their role. Their success will benefit everyone. Yet providing this support takes time, often when those best placed to give this support are most busy. In this post, I want to discuss some ideas of how we’ve tried to balance different needs in the School of Mathematics. I’ll stray towards what we aspire to, but, in all aspects, we hope to enable our junior colleagues to give excellent support to our students while respecting everybody’s time.
The induction
The unknown is scary, or it can be. Before our tutors meet their students they need an induction – that’s policy. But we should be terrified at the idea of sending an unprepared tutor in to work with our students. I see the induction as the point I will have the greatest attention from tutors. I get to demystify the work that they’re about to start and, by bringing together tutors from the same School, I have an easy time to convince our tutors of the relevance of what we discuss.
Within the induction, I give them some space to reflect on their experience as learners and as teachers to help them recognise how that could influence their approach. This also helps to highlight how our students will carry their own preconceptions of what learning and teaching will look like. We discuss some teaching scenarios to try to reduce the unknown, but, until they start to build experience, the work will remain an unknown and the induction serves to enable a positive start.
The induction content can be simple: we want them to understand what they’re being asked to do and share advice on how to do it well. I’m grateful that I’ve always had help from colleagues to run the induction. I’ve relied on them to bring a range of experiences from teaching different aspects of our discipline and show our tutors that there are many people able to support them with their varied roles.
First steps into the classroom
The immediate next experiences of our new tutors are largely outwith my control. Course organisers are informed about which of their tutors are new to the role and asked to check in from early on. We want tutors to have easy access to the people who can advise them best and to have someone available as the abstract scenarios become real and impactful interactions with our students. Giving this support places even more work on course organisers at the very moment when they’re busy helping our students get a good start on their course. It’s further complicated when a course organiser is new to the School and spending significant time trying to achieve a good start for themselves. That single point of support has the potential to be excellent but risks variability.
Thankfully, we gain a lot from the informal support given by experienced tutors. I use the induction to emphasise how there’s a vertical chain to get formal advice when needed, and this is enhanced by the ad-hoc advice from other tutors. This peer support can be immediate and can raise awareness of ideas and approaches that the other tutors had not had the opportunity to consider. It would be nice to think that this is universal, and that conversations about teaching occur organically. A lot of conversations will happen, and we gain significantly from them, but I cannot assume that conversations about teaching are common enough to reach everyone when they need it.
Support with experience
Policy will guide us to do the right thing. All tutors need an annual review, but the review of a large number of tutors would far exceed time we can take from academic staff. Therefore, I’ve used a form of peer observation to achieve this. Peer review is scalable while remaining individual, and it is the individual support which I see as the strength. New tutors are observed and supported by course organisers and all tutors get to observe, and be observed in a teaching session. For the peer observation, I want tutors to experience something new where possible – observe a teaching session in the School which is different from the experience of the observer. Tutors are paired and observe each other before meeting to reflect on what they’ve observed.
I ask them to complete a brief form afterwards and I’ve been pleased to see recognition that in observing a teaching session they gain an insight into their own teaching practice. The observation creates a space to think about the work, without the mental burden of having to do it at the same time. Before I get too positive, I should remember that we won’t get perfect engagement with this, and some who take the path won’t be active in their observations. Nevertheless, I feel the activity helps to facilitate a culture of discussing our teaching, and the impacts of culture extend beyond the action itself.
Giving room to grow
I hope this doesn’t seem like a lot – this has been my interpretation of the minimum. The natural conversations about our work lead into deeper consideration of the pedagogy behind it. Tutors who take an interest to go beyond a conversation can pursue the Introduction to Academic Practice (IntroAP) or the Edinburgh Teaching Award (EdTA). I’m extremely grateful to the Institute for Academic Development for their support for the School of Mathematics local EdTA scheme.
This has grown over several years. We started with five mentors and now, four years on, we have a team of 15 mentors actively engaging with tutors and colleagues as they reflect on their work in teaching, and dig a little deeper into the underlying principles. This feeds into a culture of discussing our teaching, and, to be selfish for a moment, these discussions have given me a wonderful insight into the experiences of tutors that are often different from what I experienced when I started teaching.
The core benefit of the our local EdTA, from my perspective, is to give a formal structure to tutors and colleagues to reflect on their work. The award, if they find the time to achieve it, is recognition, but any time they spend gives the room to grow as teacher. We need to ensure that everyone has the support to teach well, and we should strive to avoid creating any ceiling to inhibit what people can achieve.
David Quinn
Dr David Quinn is a Lecturer in the School of Mathematics. In addition to his roles as Course Organiser for some large courses, and as an Academic Cohort Lead, David has a focus on supporting the development of teaching practice within the School. Since 2020, David has worked to enhance the how the School of Mathematics organises the training and development opportunities for a growing number of tutors.
