How can we ensure limited individual tutorial time is reflective? The reflective individual tutoring model for higher education

ABSTRACT

University tutoring can play an important role in the transition from content-centered learning to student-centered learning in the transformations that are taking place in higher education institutions. This transition needs evidence-based proposals that go in this direction but that adapt to what teachers are already doing when they individually tutor their students without adding new workloads to their saturated schedules. Reflective Learning is conceived as an active Student-Centered Learning methodology that aims to increase learners’ agency, focusing specifically on developing learners’ capacities to influence their learning environments and their lifelong learning trajectories. However, to the best of our knowledge, there is no model that describes how to implement reflective individual tutoring in higher education, leaving a significant gap in knowledge and research about this area of university teaching activity. The aim of this work is to present the RITHE (Reflective Individual Tutoring in Higher Education) model, based, on one hand, on the lessons learned studying highly effective tutors in primary and secondary education, and on the other, on the theoretical and methodological principles of reflective learning. This article will explain a tutorial proposal, which is structured in three blocks and seven phases. The model is intended to serve as a guide for university educators, with applications in various areas of knowledge, and to encourage evidence-based practice research on the subject.

KEYWORDS:

• Reflective learning
• reflective practice
• individual tutoring
• higher education
• teaching innovation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Josep Pallach Institute of Education Sciences, University of Girona, under Grant XIDAR03ICE—2022. No potential competing interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Marc Pérez-Burriel

Marc Pérez-Burrie PhD in Psychology. Health psychologist in a private practice and lecturer at the University of Girona (UdG) and at the Open University of Catalonia (UOC). Marc is also a member of the International Attachment Network. His main research interest is the study of interaction, intersubjectivity and interventions with video-feedback in educational and psychotherapeutic contexts. His research focuses also on the study of tutoring, mentoring and supervision processes for the development of reflective practice.

Laura Serra

Laura Serra Saurina degree in Mathematics from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), has a Master in Mathematics for Financial Instruments from the same University (UAB) and holds a PhD in Statistics from the University of Girona (UdG). She has made two pre-doctoral stays in international research centers: the Biostatistics at the University of Florence (Italy) and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim (Norway). She worked for a year and a half at the University of Sassari (Italy) as a postdoctoral researcher.

He combined university teaching with scientific research, with articles published in the fields of statistics, economics and environmental modeling. She is a member of the Research Group in Statistics, Econometrics and Health (GRECS) and of the Biomedical Research Centre Network (CIBER) in Epidemiology and Public Health. From 2015-2019 she has been a professor of epidemiology and biostatistics methods at Pompeu Fabra University (UPF) and a research member at the Center for Health Research (CISAL), a group with which she continues to collaborate. She is currently a professor and researcher in the area of Quantitative Methods for Economics and Business at the University of Girona (UdG).

Rosario Fernández-Peña

Rosario Fernández-Peña is degree in Nursing (UB) and Social and Cultural Anthropology (UAB) and holds a PhD from the Autonomous University of Barcelona. Her main lines of research are teaching methodologies in the European Higher Education Area with an emphasis on reflective learning, and the application of the methodology based on Social Network Analysis to the Health area, mainly to the study of social support in the context of illness. She has carried out stays related to these two lines of research in different national and international universities. Currently, she participates in teaching innovation project at the University of Cantabria (Spain) and participates in different projects financed at regional and state level.