Talk:Tutor

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Contents 1 Definition of Tutor 2 St. John's College 3 Secondary meanings 4 Link Spam 5 Usage of "tuition" 6 Capitalization 7 Online tutoring - Merge proposal 8 Total confusion 9 Linkspam warning 10 CRLA 11 History

[edit] Definition of Tutor

The definition given here seems too narrow. At some universities, especially in Britain and in countries that only recently (i.e., < 150 years) becaome independent of Britain, tutor is one of the academic ranks of members of the faculty. Michael Hardy 19:39, 19 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Is anyone able to elaborate on this? Nicknz 05:08, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

To state that the equivalent of a 'tutor' in British universities is a US 'teaching assistant' may be confusing and slightly offensive to some lecturers! In the UK, a tutor is simply someone who leads a tutorial group. This, however, may well be the head of department as well as a postgraduate student. I believe that a teaching assistant is usually only a postgrad in the States?

User:Dim 10:13, 28 April 2006

A US teaching assistant is essentially the same thing as a 'tutor' in a Canadian, Australian, or New Zealand University. By 'tutor' we must surely mean someone employed as such. Even though a head of department, professor, lecturer, etc. may lead a tutorial, they are essentially replicating the role of a tutor which is, itself, a stand-alone position in most universities, usually occupied by a postgraduate student. I don't think a 'tutor', properly understood, does much more or less than a teaching assistant. I was under the impression that there were academics employed in British universities with the designation 'tutor' - my interest is really in discovering how they differ from a 'lecturer' or a 'tutor' as understood in the Commonwealth countries? Nicknz 22:56, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Might I suggest an alternative:

In British, Canadian, Australian, and New Zealand universities, a tutor is a postgraduate student assigned to conduct a seminar for undergraduate students, often known as a tutorial. In some cases a lecturer will fulfil the role of the tutor, particularly in the United Kingdom. The equivalent of a tutor in the United States is known as a teaching assistant.

Nicknz 00:33, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

I have to correct you, and provide additional information, because the main entry is inaccurate. In British universities a tutor is a member of staff that is specifically assigned to a group for pastoral care during the student's time at the university. A tutor's responsibilities are above and beyond that of a teaching assistant. As a rule, they will not include those delegated academic duties provided by a TA at an American university or college. Most tutors are normally called in their full title in administrative papers as "personal tutors", responsible for all duties relating to the student's relations between personal and academic life, and will normally hold an additonal position as lecturer, senior lecturer, academic coordinator, etc, first before they are given student groups to look after. Given this, any alternative suggestions? poochie 03:08, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

In the US, a tutor is not definately not the same function or position as a teaching assistant. I think that sentence needs to be deleted but I don't want to step on toes. I did, however, submit a broader definition of tutor and put that at the top of the page. NaliniL

[edit] St. John's College

Added information about St. John's College tutors. User:LC'sGoonSquad Andy G. 16:03, 10 Aug 2004

@sgoonsquad - why is this school ^ important in the generic definitioon of a 'tutor'!? bosky101 12:52, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Secondary meanings

To tutor someone is also a slang term for engaging in sexual activity.

Really? Can we have a source? Flapdragon 13:56, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't think this is true 69.116.65.159 01:05, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Link Spam

Does anyone know where to locate the Wikipedia policy on links? Some of the links that people add to this page are suspiciously commercial-looking. -- Nicknz 23:57, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I've been deleting some of them repeatedly. The person rewrites them everytime and sent me this email I think she's a newbie, so let's assume good faith.

This is the only contact information I could find about you I could find for you. I could not find how to respond to your message.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:69.158.108.170&redirect=no

"Please stop adding commercial links to Wikipedia. It is considered spamming, and Wikipedia is not a vehicle for advertising. Thanks."
 
I have NOT added ANY commercial links to Wikepedia. Kindly stop deleting the links I add to sources that are purely informational and NOT commercial.  How the heck could a collection of articles by various writers from various organizations be construed as commercial. I don't even OWN the site or have any financial interest in it.
 
http://www.linkdomain.com/widgit.html
 
I am adding the link back in.

To reply to your inquiry, the fact that the link is not commercial doesn't mean that it can be added to Wikipedia. The external links are used mainly as quotations and references to prove the factual accuracy of the article and not to promote website (even if they are not commercial). Moreover, editors who do not create an account and edit from IPs are more suspicious. Tony Bruguier 01:19, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

The Wikipedia policy is here. A simple WHOIS on linkdomain.com and yourdomain.com reveals that they were purchased through the same registrar and have two physical address close geographically which may conflict with item 3 of that policy; but let's assume good faith for now. Tony Bruguier 01:42, 10 July 2006

Okay here is my first stab at this. I hope I get the format right. If I haven't got the format right, please fix it. Also, am I supposed to add in the daes od do they get added in? I have edited this page to remove my personal information and address as it is my residence and I don't want my personal address and information blasted all over the net. The e-mail I sent was off-line as I didn't know how to contact you otherwise.

Okay first of all, I didn't know this:

"To reply to your inquiry, the fact that the link is not commercial doesn't mean that it can be added to Wikipedia. The external links are used mainly as quotations and references to prove the factual accuracy of the article and not to promote website (even if they are not commercial)."

In other words, it's like a footnote. Okay I get that now. Thank you for clarifying. So if one wants to edit the article and add content about the topic, the external links are for footnotes. I thought external links was for other sources of information about the topic.

In terms of your other points, the Greater Toronto area is a HUGE. Just because two people live in the Toronto area does not mean that they know each other or that they are connected. Also, we have a limited number of registrars and ISPs in this area. If someone is going to select a local ISP or registrar it is likely to be either Sympatico (owned by Bell Canada), AOL Canda, Primus, idirect (which owns domain direct) or a handful of others. You are likely to find considerable overlap between Canadian web sites in terms of where they are registered.

As far as me not registering there is nothing sinister here. I have not had time to contribute a lot and therefore didn't think it was necessary. I will go ahead and register now. Please be patient. It will take soem time to become completely familiar with the ins and outs of Wikipedia and when I have more time to contribute content (which I would love to do), I will look into it further. Thanks. 10:26, 9 July 2006

(UTC)

I have now registered. Once again thank you for the clarification. Also, please post the link to the contribution and editing guideliens. I am having trouble locating them. Thanks.

10:37, 9 July 2006

(UTC)

[edit] Usage of "tuition"

People in the United States and probably some other countries are not going to understand the titles "Private tuition" and "Online tuition". To them, tuition is the fee that you pay to go to a university, college or a private school. Also, that meaning is what the Wikipedia article tuition is about and it is the first meaning given in the American Heritage Dictionary (unfortunately, I do not have access to the Oxford English Dictionary). Therefore, I am going to change the titles to "private tutoring" and "online tutoring". Is this understandable for people in the U.K. and elsewhere? -- Serw 08:53, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Capitalization

It looks like a lot of the capitalization in the article is unnecessary. Check out all of the capitalizations in the first paragraph.

In English Secondary Schools the Form Tutor is similar to an American Home Room Teacher. They are given the responsibilites of Form or Class of students in a particular year group (up to 30 students.) They usually work in Year Teams headed by a Year Leader, Year Head or Guidance Teacher.

I do not think that these generic positions should be capitalized. For example, in the school counselor article, "school counselor", similar to "Guidance Teacher" in the paragraph above, is not capitalized in the article title or in the article. Non-educational positions, like sheriff and physician are not capitalized, either. I think that they should be made lowercase. -- Serw 09:29, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Online tutoring - Merge proposal

I propose merging the section Online tutoring with the section On the internet on the Tutorial page. Online tutoring is not appropriate for the Tutor page and is just an invitation for people to linkspam. — Nicknz 20:35, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

There would seem to be an existing article at Online tutoring which seem to have the topic covered, I would propose simply removing this text since there is already a link to that article in the 'see also' section. Kuru ^talk 15:56, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Total confusion

This article in its current state is hopelessly confused. It first claims that "tutor" is the British term for a "home room teacher", but later claims that it's the equivalent of "teaching assistant". It has a whole lot of stuff involving Year Heads and Guidance Teachers (inappropriately capitalized); are these terms actually widespread even in Britain? From there it goes into information on tutoring, and thence into information on online study programs. Probably the best thing to do is delete this whole article and replace it with a disambiguation page pointing to Education in the United Kingdom, Teaching assistant, Tutoring, and so on. (Tutoring is currently a redirect to Tutor; maybe it should get a stub article, or maybe it doesn't need one.) --Quuxplusone 08:12, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

I have shifted the part about English form tutors to a sub-section of the article (as opposed to the introductory section, which was completely inappropriate). This should resolve some of this confusion. Nicknz 08:41, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

I am new to editing wikipedia but I'd like to contribute to this page. I, too, found it confusing and I have added a definition of 'tutoring' to the top section so that there is some starting point about what any tutor does.NaliniL 16:53, 22 February 2007 (UTC)Nalini NaliniL

Hi again. I am not familiar enough with the history of edits. Did someone delete the definition that I providing for "tutoring"? Here is it again. I solicited this from the Executive Director of the National Tutoring Association and I think it's of value. A lot of the article stresses that tutors are students or teaching assistance. However, there is much more about the one-to-one education efforts of qualified and training tutors. In other words, this is not only about helping someone get their homework completed or to study for a test. One-on-one tutoring can held a learner (any age) to become a more successful self learner. This is why I would like to have this definition included: "Tutoring is a holistic process where a student and a tutor make a mutual journey to discover and practice academic and life skills while searching for and repairing the academic disconnect that has kept the student from becoming a fully self-facilitated learner. The tutor's responsibility is to understand and clearly communicate course material to the student in a manner that facilitates an improved level of proficiency in the subject as well as an increased overall sense of self-esteem for the student."

[edit] Linkspam warning

I'm not sure if it's kosher, but I inserted a comment in the External Links section that warns against linkspam. I'm guessing that most linkspammers are just uninformed, so hopefully that will cut down on the amount of spam. - Pingveno ( talk | contrib ) 19:55, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

It certainly couldn't hurt! Kuru ^talk 00:03, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] CRLA

Should we make mention of the tutoring requirements as recommended by the College Reading and Learning Association? -EarthRise33 02:12, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] History

Toward a more insightful article, one might include this observation of Andrew Forsyth (1935):

...a new profession arose -- not officially recognized: open to all; for there was neither a test of admission nor means of exclusion: that of the private coach. He made it the business of his life to prepare candidates for the examination. ... the examiners changed from year to year. But the private coach was continuous. He accumulated experience and skill: he sifted all examination papers, recent and old alike: he codified mathematical knowledge into small tracts or pamphlets, kept in manuscript for his own private prescription for his own set of students.

"Old Tripos days at Cambridge", Mathematical Gazette 19: 162-79.

A more detailed story of the evolution of tutoring at Cambridge is given by Andrew Warwick in Masters in Theory. He also explains the rift with the standard instructors which generated the need for tutoring. Clearly this article can fit the role of tutor into education when expectations and student maturity have been addressed.Rgdboer (talk) 22:16, 15 June 2008 (UTC)