Tutor Training Program: A Pilot in Electronic Engineering Tamath Rainsford The University of Adelaide tamath.rainsford@adelaide.edu.au Brian Ng The University of Adelaide brian.ng@adelaide.edu.au Abstract: The authors conducted a program to develop a tutorial model that can be broadly applied across engineering based courses that is effective for student learning but also low maintenance for lecturers. An initial half-day workshop was run by the authors for a pool of tutors within the School of Electrical & Electronic Engineering before the start of a semester. The workshop aimed to provide support for the basic tutorial model as well as improve teaching quality among the participants. A series of follow up interviews were conducted at the conclusion of the semester. The impact of the program was found to be variable among the tutor cohort. Introduction While lectures provide a solid theoretical framework, tutorials are an opportunity for students to try out their new skills, to apply and to rethink initial ideas from lectures. In engineering courses, particularly in the early years, the traditional approach to the tutorial is often applied: the lecturer sets a number of problems and one or more tutors are then responsible for assisting the students to develop solutions to these. In this model, the tutor plays a central role in delivering the tutorial. Over time, students may develop a degree of dependency on competent tutors for their learning, which is detrimental to their long-term learning autonomy. On the other hand, students could become disenchanted and lose engagement with his/her own learning if taught by incompetent tutors. Balancing the quality of tutorials as important learning events and instilling an appropriate pedagogy among tutors are therefore crucial to the overall learning and teaching success of a University course. Frequently, tutors are postgraduate students who have only recently taken the course themselves (Friedberg 2005). As an undergraduate, the tutor would likely have a mixed (positive and negative) learning experience, which shaped the ways in which he/she would deliver information to and interact with students. The new tutor is faced with many new responsibilities and challenges: their knowledge and expertise of the field will be tested, as will their ability to manage time, engage the class and earn respect. The ways in which tutors prepare before their classes is as important as what they actually do in the classroom. Early experiences of teaching are likely to modify the ways in which they prepare and also manage the class; bad experiences may encourage the tutor to engage less with the class and to control the progression of material more. The beginning tutor cannot be expected to instinctively know how to teach well and so tutor training is vital to their success. Further complicating the process is the often culturally diverse post-graduate population who undertake tutoring in a research-intensive university. Many international post graduates have some prior teaching experience, but typically in a totally different learning and teaching environment common to the English-speaking world. These differences deeply affect the style of teaching employed by these tutors, as well as their engagement with students and management of tutorial sessions. Some degree of (re-)training of these tutors is also needed to ease their adaptation to teaching at a Western style University. Another dimension to post graduate tutors is the possibility of teaching as a career. While this is perhaps not as common in engineering as in some fundamental fields of study, there is still a significant population of tutors who are attracted to academia as a career. In these cases, tutoring takes ISBN 1 876346 59 0  2009 AAEE 2009 350