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Work in progress: Developing and evaluating tutor training for collaborative teaching

The use collaborative of pedagogies in undergraduate engineering courses are usually implemented by academics who place value on the student experience and their students achieving deep as opposed to surface learning. The professional development and understanding of appropriate theories needed to prepare materials and support student learning in these different teaching environments is often left to the academic to pursue independently, if at all. Whilst individual academics who revitalise courses in line with collaborative learning practices have the motivation, personality and teaching skills necessary to facilitate a class or groups of students, it may not be so for additional `tutors' allocated to assist. Their differences in philosophy, personality and skills may have major impacts on the student learning experience. Even where tutors may be experienced academics in their own right, they may not fully understand the rationale and methods being employed and may need skill development. Professional development of academic staff is often overlooked in universities but it is vital for staff to engage in new learning and teaching practices and skill development if collaborative teaching strategies are to be sustained and make a positive contribution to the student learning journey. These factors become even more important as universities move into the online environment where meaningful engagement with the student cohort is significantly more than just making content available and having electronic submission of assignments. This paper describes the development of a strategy to train engineering tutors in online PBL facilitation, and the evaluation framework used to assess the effectiveness of this training. Results of the evaluation of training and subsequent behavioural changes of the tutors are given. The evaluation revealed a variance between the message of the training and subsequent practice. The method of evaluation, and subsequent findings were enabled, rather than constrained by the online environment.