Observation of an Experienced Tutor
To introduce my expert, David, David is one of Get IT Together's IT trainers. David is also a freelance IT tutor for Digital Unite. David has been tutoring clients on a one to one basis for over five years. He completed PTLLS course at City of Bath College and has a qualification in Microsoft Components.
David only had two learners at today's lesson in Redland library, Clifton, it was week five, David introduced me and then went on to praise the two learners by saying, they had been very successful in their learning. The learners responded to this, “we have really benefited from the course”. As Get IT Together tutors we do not currently produce a lesson plan, we follow a tutor guideline which is designed by the project co-ordinators. Each trainer has his or her own method in getting the information across to the learners, who are complete beginners. However from my first year on DTLLS I can see the importance of a planned lesson, I agree totally with this statement “A key consideration in the planning and preparation of any lesson is that it should create learning activities which are accessible to all learners “(Wallace, 2007, p114) This helps to ensure Inclusive Teaching and learning.
The final week is normally done by running through any areas that learners are unsure about from previous weeks, or any interests or requests. As tutors for Get IT Together we are instructed to try to keep to a similar scheme of work to ensure all objectives are met over the five weeks. The course is fun, voluntary and in a relaxed style. Week five is a general reminder of the previous weeks, I normally will ask my learners what they would like to do in the last session. David did this also, but what I found really useful was he had asked the learners the week before to write down any questions or thoughts for the following week. The two learners did have some questions which they had written down.
Ground rules had been established on week one and all was needed was a brief Introduction to the learners for my benefit, and a progress report. Lessons are focused on the learners, but we do have a set of guidelines and objectives to reach, but we aim to go with the learner’s needs and requirements to ensure Inclusive Teaching and Learning.
It is all too easy to become wrapped up in the technology and to forget why you are using it. Your students’ needs for learning and your role in meeting these needs must be central to all of this. (Race and McDowell, 1999, p64)
David asked the learners if there were any other tasks they would like to know, one learner said she would like to know how to cut and paste. David clearly explained, and the learner followed the instructions, which seemed to work well, I agree with this statement “Most learning happens by doing, students do not learn much by hearing us talk about IT” (Race and McDowell, 1999, pg 55)

I also learnt from this observation, that You Tube is a great place for directing learners, if they forget how to do something there is a step by step tutorial online by simply typing in the request. David then asked the learners how they would do this, which they seemed capable of doing, However David was there encouraging and praising them which is really important. In our lessons we use a seven page handbook which is our resource based learning and scheme of work, then we have twenty page supplementary handbook which goes into more detail about the five week course. As tutors we are instructed to use these resources, refer learners to these within the two hour lessons as much as possible. At the start of the five week course I will go through the handbook with my learners, explain that what the lessons will cover and advise them to read the handbook for reference. David did refer to the handbook once but that was all, I find I am trying to mention the book as much as possible as this will help learners after the lessons have finished. Learners writing