As an open university class tutor, I often wonder how to be a tutor popular with the students, but the only answer is student satisfaction. Over the past year, I came across students who were “grabbing for paper qualifications”, “hard to communicate with” or “unreasonable”. But now, they are all good, sensible students.
I. Meet each student with a smile
It is the responsibility of an open university tutor to serve the learning society and support students in their learning; we should always keep in mind and practice service awareness. I think a smile is the key to service quality and to get closer to the students.
I always get excited when new students are divided into classes at the beginning of each term. I remember the autumn semester of 2013 when I was working as a class tutor for the first time. There were 160 new students. Busy as I was with all kinds of forms, the opening ceremony, and the distribution of teaching materials, I kept in mind that the most difficult mountain to cross is the threshold. The first impression is the most important. I learnt by heart the faces and names of the students from their registration photos. As a result, I knew the students in my class by sight and name on the day of the opening ceremony. When I pronounced their names with a smile, I saw trust developing in their surprise. Every time a student asked me how I recognized them at the ceremony, my answer is always: “I want to see your smiling faces. Hundreds of sessions of memorization have impressed you in my mind.” I followed this practice over the succeeding terms and kept in mind the faces and names of each student. I always meet my students for face-to-face tutorials so that we gradually develop a relationship.
II. Serve each student with sincerity
Someone once said, “Attitude is the most magical power in the world. A person’s living conditions and the direction of their life are completely controlled by his attitude towards life. The life you lead is decided by your attitude towards life. A positive attitude will lead us to the peak of life with happiness and beauty, while a negative attitude will lead us to difficulty and misfortune. Attitude determines success or failure. Attitude is the key to everything.” I am convinced that a sincere attitude can move people and sincere communication can stabilize the relationship with each student, which is conducive to facilitating our communication and to conveying our kindness. Nobody can refuse a kind suggestion made with positive energy. Whatever living conditions the other person has, we can all get along well if we can understand each other through communication.
Communication with new comers in the first term is the top priority. In order to make the two-and-half-year work of a class tutor easy and pleasant, it is most important to handle the first exchanges and the first learning task guidance well. I always keep in frequent contact with new students. Firstly, we must know the students’ timetable. Communication shouldn’t clash or interfere with work time, but the more communication and concern you give to the students, the more attention they will pay to learning. In this regard I have many similar personal experiences. There was a student aged over forty in the undergraduate business programme in the spring term of 2014. When I called him the first time, he was playing cards. He was quite indifferent. However, I didn’t give up and phoned him again in the evening. I asked about his ideas, carefully explained the importance of learning, gave some examples of old students, and corrected his misunderstanding open universities taking “money for diplomas”. Our conversation came to a pleasant end. Now, this student has successfully passed the national examination for Computer Applications. If I hadn’t had this further exchange with him or explained the importance of the learning process, he would have met many difficulties in the subsequent face-to-face tutorials, tests, and examinations.
III. Give Support and Attention to Each Student
We are living in the age of “details”. We can only fulfill our responsibilities and do our own job well by starting from the small things. I write down what I do in my work every day, record all phone enquiries from the students, dealing with them in sequential order and giving timely feedback. If you can solve the students’ learning problems then they will know that you are concerned with their learning, which in turn helps them to take a better attitude towards learning. This is a good way for me to get along well with my students.
Most of the students in my 2013 autumn semester junior college pre-education class hadn’t obtained qualification certificates even though they were engaged in early childhood teaching. They had no idea of the application steps and the required qualifications. I loaded the relevant documents onto the Class Group so that the students could get a clear picture of the application procedure for tutor qualifications. The enrollment procedure Mandarin Chinese, and the learning tasks for each period were also put in the Group document. The students were then taught how to read the Group announcements, download Group documents, and finish the learning tasks. When studying the courses for Vocational Practice 1, I put in the examination and course construction notes in the Group documents to guarantee that all the students passed. I informed the students via the Fetion application, and most of the 64 students in the class finished loading, installing, and the examination. I also got enquiry phone calls and QQ messages from the students, which I answered one by one. The 100 percent fulfillment of the Vocational Training course laid the foundation for the graduation of the whole class. Learning tasks such as online formative examinations and examination on Admissions Guide for the OUC were able to reach a 100 percent completion rate due to methods such as sharing in the QQ Group, Fetion announcement, screen shot message to me upon completion, immediate record upon receiving, and notifying the students who hadn’t finished the tasks two weeks before the deadline.
Careful work takes time, but error-free work makes you feel triumphant. The more fulfilled you feel, the more confidence you have. I experience small surprises and humble achievements in my ordinary job all the time.
IV. Guide each student with self-confidence
I like the job of class tutor more and more as time goes on. Not only have I made many friends, I am also learning new knowledge and skills. At the same time, this gives me a sense of psychological fulfillment, which increases my self-confidence. Whether a job is easy or difficult, you can only do it efficiently if you have the confidence to do it well.
In the past I have met students who refuse to go on learning for a number of different reasons. There are some special conditions that I can’t manage. But I have succeeded in persuading the students who think the degree is useless or the learning is troublesome with many examples, including my own experience. I feel confident and relieved every time a student keeps learning because of my encouragement.
“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” Everytime there is a new learning task, I first enter the platform to familiarize myself with the completion procedure, and then share the detailed method in the Group document. Most of the students can finish the learning tasks based on the shared method. Many learning tasks need to be completed over the course of two and a half years. I always start out by teaching them learning methods so that they can deal with learning problems freely later on. Only in this way, can they feel confident in learning.
As practical open university educators, our quality and capacity directly affects the quality of our teaching. Only when we understand and master all the aspects of the teaching model, can we correctly guide the students’ learning. Only when the students really see an improvement in their capacities will they choose to move on to further continuing education. In this way, the reputation of the Open University of China can be improved by creating a virtuous circle of open education and teaching, thus realizing the sustainable development of open universities.
By Zhang Xingron,Jiangyou Radio and TV University