LOCAL TUTOR’S HANDBOOK
A BEING A LOCAL TUTOR 3
B WHAT LOCAL TUTORS DO 4 1. Foster encouraging and supportive ways of working that enable 5
each student to learn and develop well
2. Help students by having a good understanding of the content, 6
ethos and theological rationale of the training programme
3. Assess students’ development in knowledge, conviction and 7
competence in order to offer constructive criticism and support
that promote learning and development
4. Feedback in tutorials 10
5. Mark Sheet 12
6. Use of the Mark Sheet 13
C HELPING STUDENTS LEARN 14
1. Planning tutorials 14
2. Tutoring exegesis 20
3. Tutoring Unit 5 28
4. Using the Service Report Form 32
D ASSIGNMENT COMMENTARIES (can be photocopied for students) 34
E. AN OVERVIEW OF THE TRAINING PROGRAMME 45
SUPPORT PAPERS
Service Report Form and Summary Sheet
(for photocopying for students and assessors, if necessary)
Connexional Assessment cover sheet
(for photocopying – a checklist for students that becomes the assessors’ mark sheet)
How to submit a section of Faith & Worship for Connexional Assessment
(guidance for students and tutors)
From ‘on note’ to admission as a local preacher
Rules and Regulations
Circuit interviews for local preachers ‘on trial’
Tutor development
(a checklist for review and provision of support)
Mark Sheet
A BEING A LOCAL TUTOR
As a Local Tutor you are one of over 800 of us who are either working alone or part of a team of tutors helping students develop their knowledge, conviction and competence as they train to become local preachers. This handbook is written in the style of a Faith & Worship unit to familiarise new tutors with the kind of approaches students will meet. The handbook relates to other supporting papers in this pack in the way that a unit would refer to a Bible passage, a commentary, a work of art or other resources.
The aim of the handbook is to help you prepare for:
· sensitive and appropriate tutoring that helps students learn and develop;
· assessing students’ work.
Reflect:
What is it about being a Local Tutor that beckons you on into tutoring?
What is it about being a Local Tutor that causes you some unease?
Each of us has different responses to these questions. Our strengths and our weaknesses as a Local Tutor are likely to reflect several factors (e.g. our formal and informal theological training and education, our experience in tutoring adults and assessing students’ work). They may also reflect a thoughtful consideration about applying what we have done elsewhere to the context of training local preachers.
It is good to recognise that none of us comes to tutoring as the perfect tutor. Also, the apprehensions expressed by those who are new to tutoring are often mirrored in similar feelings that students experience as they begin their local preachers’ training. Tutors and students are indeed partners in learning. With empathy, sensitivity and humour, tutorials become times when all of us taking part are enriched and helped to develop.
The next sections of this handbook aim to describe the tutoring process so that tutorials really are happy, challenging, inspired and inspiring occasions.
B WHAT LOCAL TUTORS DO
The Faith & Worship units do most of the teaching, informing, questioning, task-setting and encouraging reflection. Tutoring offers face-to-face support and guidance which meets individual students’ needs as they progress through the training programme. There are three key aspects of tutoring:
Local tutors:
· foster encouraging and supportive ways of working that enable each student to learn and develop well.
This includes:
- exciting the interest of students in what’s coming next;
- equipping students with the skills they need in order to engage with the units;
- helping them reflect, clarify their understanding and prepare for preaching.
· help students by having a good understanding of the content, ethos and theological rationale of the training programme;
· assess students’ development in knowledge, conviction and competence (using the programme’s assessment criteria) in order to offer constructive criticism and support that promote learning and development;
This includes:
- the marking of assignments;
- giving feedback on the student’s leading of worship and preaching;
- helping local preachers ‘on trial’ to explore their call.
To help fulfil those three key aspects of tutoring, Local Tutors have the following responsibilities to the circuit and to the Connexional Team:
· keeping records of students’ progress;
· equipping students to compile their worship portfolio;
· sharing with mentors, pastoral responsibility for students’ development;
· reporting to the Circuit Local Preachers’ Meeting on students’ progress in their training;
· taking part in a tutoring support programme approved by the Methodist Church.
There are other supplementary possibilities which some tutors have chosen to do, for example:
· contributing to a district’s support of other local tutors (e.g. by moderating a few assignments marked by a new local tutor);
· contributing to a circuit’s support programme for those leading worship and preaching;
· taking part in promoting Continuing Local Preacher Development.
Activity:
Consider what a description would look like for people who have tutored or taught you in the past. What are the similarities and differences?
B1. FOSTER ENCOURAGING AND SUPPORTIVE WAYS OF WORKING THAT ENABLE EACH STUDENT TO LEARN AND DEVELOP WELL
Students need to see tutors as allies. Some of them may have misgivings about studying and having their work scrutinised. They may even fear having a tutor, especially a tutor who will be assessing their work. Tutors may need to persuade some students that they are alongside them, understanding their fears, their personal circumstances and helping them do well.
In order to be encouraging, it is good practice to clarify what will happen when students experience difficulty or do not reach an appropriate level of achievement. The safety nets that are in place include:
· the re-working of part(s) of an assignment or of other assessed work;
(When this happens, the earlier work is kept and resubmitted so that there is a record of how a student has developed and improved.)
· support from tutor and/or mentor (or others) to help overcome a difficulty.
(This might be needed for an aspect of the course (e.g how to evaluate, or how to study, or theological reflection, or approach to preaching, or audibility).)
Tutorials are likely to include a time for devotions, where the students and tutor are equal partners in worship, praise and prayer – each sharing in leading too.
Tutorials are likely to involve students in a range of activities. Tutorials are not lectures, but are an interplay or dialogue between students and tutor. Ideas for activities in tutorials appear elsewhere in this handbook in the section on ‘Helping students learn’ (pages 14-34).
Tutorials are probably about two hours long. Any longer and intense concentration is difficult to sustain (for tutors as well as students!) Pacing work between tutorials needs to be considered carefully, as does pacing the tutorial itself – sometimes relaxed, sometimes very demanding. Tutorials must be fun, with plenty of scope for laughter!
Tutorials highlight differing theological positions. Faith & Worship does not have a party line for students or tutors to toe. The units aim to offer a range of biblical and theological understandings so that an individual perspective can be widened and so that faith can be deepened. Tutorials should work similarly.
There is further guidance on tutorials in ‘Helping students learn’ (see pages 14-33).
A prayer
Gracious God,
your love surrounds us as we share in this tutorial.
You reassure us, guide us
and fill us with the gifts and graces of your Holy Spirit.
We come together as followers of Jesus,
alert to your call and glad to be led by you.
May your blessing be ours as we learn from you and each other.
We bring this prayer in the name of Jesus Christ, our teacher and friend. Amen.
B2. HELP STUDENTS BY HAVING A GOOD UNDERSTANDING OF THE CONTENT, ETHOS AND THEOLOGICAL RATIONALE OF THE TRAINING PROGRAMME
Circuits are expected to provide Local Tutors with an up-to-date copy of Faith & Worship. If your copy does not have icons like the ‘Read’ icon below, then it is out of date. A discounted price is offered by mph when the entire course is ordered. Even if you are tutoring only part of the course, you should be aware of the entire programme.
Read (especially if you are new to being a local tutor) Unit 1, pages 10-11 – the course syllabus and ‘From “on note” to admission as a local preacher’.
By becoming familiar with the units, the four sections (A,B,C,D) of Faith & Worship and the papers accompanying this handbook, we make it easier for ourselves to help students through the training programme.
B3. ASSESS STUDENTS’ DEVELOPMENT IN KNOWLEDGE, CONVICTION AND COMPETENCE (USING THE PROGRAMME’S ASSESSMENT CRITERIA) IN ORDER TO OFFER CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM AND SUPPORT THAT PROMOTE LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT
One of the great joys of Faith & Worship is the creativity which some assignments have drawn out of students. This needs to be encouraged and not marked down. The assignments are printed on the Student Record Sheets which are published with the units. In order to make assignments as clear as possible, a commentary on each assignment has been provided for use by tutors and students. The commentaries appear in this handbook (see pages 34-44). The guidance in each assignment’s mark scheme and the commentaries is intended to help students and tutors. It does not suggest that Local Tutors and Connexional Assessors are looking for a single standard answer. It is important for all to be open to new insights which students bring.
a. Marking assignments
As Local Tutors, we are asked to mark only the assignments. Connexional Assessors do all the other assessment. We record our marks and comments on the Student Record Sheet (printed at the end of each unit from Unit 4 to Unit 17). Students should attach their Student Record Sheet (with their evaluative comments on the back) to the work they give us for marking.
The marking of assignments is where we feel most exposed. Not only is there the need to justify the assessment to our students (whom we know and want to encourage), but there is also that small matter of the scrutiny of Connexional Assessors (who only see the work and not the student as a whole person). To stay safe in the business of awarding marks, there are two principles that need to be followed:
· Apply the criteria;
· Recognise the 40% pass mark.
Read the Mark Sheet and ‘Use of the Mark Sheet’ (pages 12-13).
i. Apply the criteria.
Local Tutors (and Connexional assessors) are looking for:
· Knowledge description and information about attributable
facts and ideas
· Understanding expression of ideas, appreciation of issues
· Evaluation ideas weighed and valued to help reach a
conclusion
· Application use of knowledge and understanding in
constructing worship
(Note: Application is specified in assignment mark schemes e.g. ‘meaning for today’ of a Bible passage, prayer/sermon writing.)
With the help of three descriptors for each of these areas, we must judge achievement as either ‘very good’, or ‘adequate’ or ‘limited’ and then mark accordingly. For each of these judgements there is a mid-point mark from which a range of marks fans out in order to pitch the mark fairly. It is worth having the Mark Sheet easily to hand whenever marking students’ assignments. This sheet aims to make marking as straightforward as possible.
It is interesting how, when Local Tutors are given anonymous papers to mark, we find high levels of agreement as to which band (very good/adequate/limited) is merited by each part of an assignment. Not surprisingly, knowing a student makes dispassionate marking harder to do. The key is to apply the criteria and to write constructive feedback on the written work itself as well as on the Student Record Sheet.
One way of applying the criteria is to tick any evidence of what is being assessed. For example, when marking for Evaluation, evaluative words like ‘beautiful’, ‘exciting’, ‘doubtful’ or ‘convincing’ need to be backed up by evidence that has led the student to this opinion. Carefully reached conclusions which are supported by reasoned arguments and checks for evidence all deserve ticks. The mere retelling of a story or expression of an idea is unlikely to be given credit in this context. The more ticks, the stronger the justification for a higher mark.
When our marking applies the criteria in line with the mark scheme given in the assignment itself and the guidance given in the assignment commentary, then we can expect Connexional assessors to endorse our assessment. Tutors do now get feedback from Connexional Assessors, not just on students’ work, but also on tutoring and assessment matters.
Activity
Look again at the Mark Sheet and the paragraphs above which intend to clarify how the application of criteria help you assess students’ work. Mark it out of 10 for ‘Application’ and make comments on how it could be improved.
Discuss your assessment with a more experienced Local Tutor or your District Tutor. Later in this handbook, there is an opportunity to check standards when looking at exegesis assessment (see pages 20-27).
ii. Recognise the 40% pass mark
Students would like tutors to mark in the range 80% to 100%. Tutors would like to encourage students and build their confidence by marking generously. However, any score from 40% to 100% is a positive achievement. There is a beauty in 40% which students (and tutors) recognise most keenly when first attempts have not reached that standard. The application of criteria justifies the mark and helps students adjust to a realistic understanding of how they are doing.