Talk:Tutoring

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

I agree that a general definition or introduction that might encompass the range of usages of the term tutor might be helpful. What happened to the broader definition, NaliniL? The article seems to jump right into details which can be confusing.Ahnie (talk) 00:34, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

@Ahnie Surely the subtitle: 'Private academic lessons', is definitely incorrect - especially 'private' since tutors operate right across the academic spectrum. 86.156.113.40 (talk) 12:21, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

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)

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)

I'm sure it is true in some contexts. Just ask Abelard and Heloise. — LlywelynII 15:25, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

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. User:Bruguiea 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. User:Bruguiea 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)

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)

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)

British English likes to unnecessarily capitalize the Titles of Persons of Import. That then makes Other People capitalize Their Own Titles as well. Yeah, it's all against MOS and should be fixed as it comes up though. — LlywelynII 15:24, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

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)

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."

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)

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)

History: Test tutoring

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)

...and similar instructors for the Chinese imperial exams long before this. Yes, absolutely. — LlywelynII 15:19, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

Another definition of tutor?

I have seen early 19th Century court documents from New Orleans that refer to the appointment of a "tutor" for an orphan ("tutee"). Apparently, this tutor acted as a guardian. Perhaps this was a carry-over from the Napoleonic Code. Bruin2 (talk) 14:34, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Bruin2, I think what you are referring to is here. Koala Tea Of Mercy (KTOM's Articulations & Invigilations) 12:26, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

It is something to distinguish in a hatnote or dab page. — LlywelynII 15:19, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

Added Citation

The In Home Tutoring vs Online Tutoring chart was pulled from a website. I added the appropriate citation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by JasonHoldEm1234 (talk • contribs) 03:27, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

DIT

i am Rahim From Peshawar i want to do DIT what is Dit sent me the whole information about DIT —Preceding unsigned comment added by 119.156.31.5 (talk) 20:09, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Home Tutoring vs. Home Schooling Chart

Is it OK if I add this chart to the article? It succinctly clarifies many common misconceptions between home tutoring and schooling. I can cite it appropriately as well.JasonHoldEm1234 (talk) 17:12, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Topic	In Home Tutoring	Home Schooling
Location	The student's home or public location	The student's home
Certification	No certification or license required	In some states it is recommended a home schooling program must be certified and approved by the local school district, although not necessary.
Instructor	Typically a college graduate, but in theory anyone can be a tutor	Again, in some states the instructor must be a state certified teacher, with all the licenses and credentials recommended by both the state and local school district
Material Covered	K-12 and College Subjects	K-12; very rarely is home schooling held for college level courses
Time of Instruction	After school hours	Any time of the day, although typically during school hours

Source: http://www.tutorbungalow.com/in_home_tutoring.php

I removed the material as a blatant copyright violation. We can not simply cut-and-paste material into Wikipedia articles. ElKevbo (talk) 15:52, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Crown Tutoring

the same people who spammed the home tutoring page, took our table, the original content concerning home tutoring out, and put theirs in, I putting back the content that was originally hear and we are the creators of the home tutoring page

(Brodaiga (talk) 15:28, 12 August 2011 (UTC))brodaiga

I'm sorry but I'm not following you. In any case, the material you re-added was in violation of copyright so I removed it. ElKevbo (talk) 15:52, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

you have removed my entries for copyright on the tutoring pages, I am the copyright owner, I wrote the table and am the owner of Crown Tutoring, INC. What would you like to see? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Brodaiga (talk • contribs) 16:10, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

I am the copy right owner of CT, and this content was readied --Brodaiga (talk) 16:20, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Edits of 26 June

I tried to clean up the "private tutoring section" a bit. I tried to make it read less like promotional material from a tutoring company and more like an encyclopedia entry. Here are specific justifications for some of my edits.

• Tutelage is not "the process of ... begin under the guidance of a tutor." It's a much more general term. If you don't believe this, see, for example, "tutelage, n.". OED Online. June 2012. Oxford University Press. http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/207851 (accessed June 26, 2012).
• I found the sentence that discribed "mentoring" as implying that the student is "an empty vessel into which knowledge is poured" to be inaccurate. Nothing in any definition of "mentor" that I've seen (e.g., the OED's) carries this implication. Besides, the sentence reads like promotional material for a company offering self-styled "academic coaching".
• Academic tutoring, as I understand it, can mean tutoring in any academic context, not just students tutoring other students.
• Private/personal tutoring are not the same as in-home tutoring, as private tutoring can occur in places other than homes.

66.244.80.6 (talk) 17:17, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

literature of authors

i want authors quotes and literature for the indicator of excellence (tweak) for my grduate course so please help me iwant it urgent — Preceding unsigned comment added by 182.182.46.82 (talk) 20:09, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

"Costs" section needs major rewrite.

While I think having a section on the costs of tutoring is very good, the section as written is very bad. Differing scales (per household vs per nation, per month vs per year) are all mixed together and there is no context to make sense of the data (valuation of the market needs to include information on the size/population of the market, cost per household needs to include household income levels). Right now the section as written tells us:

• Pakistan: $3.40 / student / month
• India: $2.00 / student / month ...and...
• India: $6.4 Billion / nation / year
• Georgia: $48 million / nation / year
• Hong Kong: $255 million / city-state / year
• Japan: $12 Billion / nation / year
• South Korea: $17.3 Billion / nation / year

These data leave many context related questions unanswered, such as:

• What percentage of household income is this?
• What is the typical family size?
• How many students are in the nation??

Also the year of the data for each is not always clear in the text of the article which can be significant depending on how far apart they are chronologically. National and household incomes have dramatically changed in some countries over the past decade.

And finally, the following excerpt makes no sense as written:

• "Household expenditures on private tutoring are equivalent to about 80% of government expenditures on public education for primary and secondary students."

I researched the (offline) citation and found an online summary of the source here which much more clearly states: "In 2006, the household sector spent 2.57% of the nation's GDP on private tutoring for primary and secondary school students. Government spending on those students was about 3.5% of GDP" but offers no number for GDP in 2006 for context. (Maybe that number is in the actual source). Also, a simple math calculation (not WP:OR) shows 2.57/3.5 = 73% which is a far cry from the "about 80%" from the excerpt above but I presume this is probably what the WP editor was talking about. Koala Tea Of Mercy (KTOM's Articulations & Invigilations) 13:08, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Requested move 15 January 2021

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Moved (non-admin closure) (t · c) buidhe 21:40, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

---

Tutor → Tutoring – The activity of tutoring seems to be what is the primary scope of this article, not the profession of a tutor. Currently, the word 'tutor' is mentioned here about 16 times, and the concept of tutoring, 140+. While the lead starts with a sentence about what is a tutor it then moves on to defining tutoring, and the rest of the article continues from that point on. Tutors have their own small section Tutor#Tutors and that's about all that makes sense. After redirecting I suggest retargeting the redirect to that particular section. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 08:04, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

• Support, the activity encompasses the role of the person who performs the activity. BD2412 T 19:39, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
• Support Rreagan007 (talk) 20:06, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

This was obviously a mistake. There is no subject of tutoring apart from performing the role of a personal instructor (i.e., a tutor). Sure, the article should be rewritten and structured before it's moved back to the right namespace, though. — LlywelynII 15:15, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

I agree. Eric ^talk 11:55, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): RaginiGhosh.

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 18 January 2021 and 14 May 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Sanchezpl. Above undated messages substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 11:49, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

History

It's obviously patent nonsense that tutoring began with the Greeks; was "favored" by the upper class Romans; and was left without any concern for its structure until the 20th century.

Personal instruction is unquestionably the oldest form of education; even professional tutors for hire are well attested in China centuries before the sophists; the richer Romans had Greek slaves they used in part as tutors; and the structuring of royal education by royal tutors is the foundation of the structuring of any form of education in the written record. Since there is no separate royal tutor page, the history section here needs to be expanded with at least a paragraph on the development of those ideas in Europe. The provided link to our article on British royal education hopefully provides a starting point and sourcing. Ideally, it should be complemented by at least the traditions in India and East Asia.

There's a source for the 20th century claim that's specious in its current wording. Kindly consult the source for the valid part of what it was trying to say and rephrase what we have so that it's actually honest about what happened in the 20th century. Possibly it's just that more rigor was applied towards tutoring of middle class and poorer children; possibly it's restricted to specific techniques or fields; or possibly it's just inaccurate because the author forgot about/disregarded the extensive existing literature on pedagogy. — LlywelynII 15:15, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

We also should probably have a section in the history section mentioning some of the more prominent instances of tutoring, although some—like Abelard and Heloise—might bring up really uncomfortable topics given modern ideas about acceptable discipline and sexuality. — LlywelynII 15:28, 29 August 2023 (UTC)