Letters to the Editor


ELEMENTS FOR EFFECTIVE TUTORING

Adult learning is an area that is worth looking into, especially when it comes to tutoring. Certain elements must be present for effective tutoring to happen.

Firstly, tutors must be a few steps ahead of his or her learners. Tutors must have the necessary paper qualifications and teaching experience to perform well during tutorials. Secondly, tutors must be disciplined in their approach. They should be well-prepared for tutorials and punctual so as not to waste the learners’ time. Thirdly, tutors and learners alike must be responsible for making the tutorial an effective learning experience. The tutor does his or her part by facilitating quality educational experiences while learners also contribute by preparing beforehand with intelligent questions and suggestions.

Stevens Lahamin Wasibin
Tutor
OUM Main Campus, Kuala Lumpur




LEARNERS’ EXPECTATIONS OF OUM TUTORS

Distance learning has been a trend in many parts of the world, especially in the United Kingdom. I for one am doing my doctoral degree with a British university via distance learning.

Hence, I strongly support this system as it provides an advantage to working adults who can work and study at the same time. In Malaysia, OUM stands out as it uses a lot of information technology such as the Internet and digital library.

However, in terms of getting knowledge, the learners may feel that they are not gaining much from tutors. From my observation, some tutors have less knowledge than learners, particularly those who have been in the job market for 40 years or more. In some cases, the learners have more experience than their tutors. Learners, of course, can still benefit from the tutors’ theoretical knowledge.

Kiong Siew Wai
Tutor
Negeri Sembilan Learning Centre



TO BE A BETTER TUTOR

The article 10 Steps to Better Tutoring in Issue 27 is good as it reflects what we’ve been doing as tutors. As tutors, we have to plan our lessons well with only 2 hours per tutorial and 10 topics to teach in 5 tutorials. We always tell the students to read the module so that we can discuss the gist of the topic. However, most students attend tutorials with no preparation and expect the tutors to go through each topic page by page. If you do this, it will definitely take hours to finish.

In addition, tutors should also spend time discussing assignments with learners. I write out guidelines on how to answer the assignment questions in detail every semester. This is an important point which I think should have been included in the article.

Dr Nor Fariza Mohd Nor
Tutor
Serdang Raya Learning Centre

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I can educate my learners about the wrongfulness of plagiarism by:

setting a good example i.e. not committing plagiarism myself in the notes or materials that I give them
 
teaching them the correct way to quote references in their assignments
 
explaining to them the difference between original work and plagiarised work
 
severely penalising them whenever they hand in plagiarised work
 
 
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