I agree with Richardsons paper which found few differences between students’ experiences of ‘Face-to-face versus online tutoring support in humanities courses in distance education’. Bearing in mind what I said earlier about the role of rhetoric in reports of educational research, do you find my conclusion – I don not think that institutions can feel confident about exploring the use of online forms of tutorial support in too wide a context, for a start I think that the article did not make clear the exaxt definition of what Tuition actually meant. There is a clear distinction for me on the words tuition and tutorial. Tuition is the delivery of learning and there can be varying levels of ability to deliver tuition as we all know. Tutorials on the other hand denote a pastoral activity of provideing support, mentoring and assistance to someone who has encountered a problem or needs some goals set.
My own own experience of online tutorial support has been relatively brief and scant by comparison to some other areas of my academic life. I think that I have not been in the position yet to need the tutorial so therein lies a problem. I have noticed a few examples of the tutor guiding myself and others in the right direction and these have provided timely focus but as such have not necessarily noticed any groundbreakingly supportive activities.