The mission of Contemporary Higher Education is "to train competent professionals committed to social development". This requires universities to focus their attention on comprehensive student training.
The researchers agree that revolutionary changes must take place in the conception of the Teaching-learning process and the roles that teachers and students assume in it, different from those assumed in traditional university training. The integral formation of the university student requires a transition from a simple and limited conception of the teacher as transmitter and of the student as receiver and reproducer of scientific knowledge, towards a much broader and more complex conception of the teacher as the student's guide in the knowledge construction process, skills and values associated with efficient, ethical and responsible professional performance, in which the student gradually assumes the condition of subject of their professional training under the tutelage of the teacher. (1) (2) (3).
The report prepared by the UNESCO International Commission on Education for the 21st century, commonly known as "The Delors Report", indicates that Education must be organized around four fundamental learnings that will be for each person, the pillars of knowledge to throughout life: learning to know, that is, acquiring the instruments of understanding; learning to do, in order to influence one's environment; learning to live together, to participate and cooperate with others in all human activities and learn to be, as a fundamental process that gathers elements from the previous three. (4).
Taking into account the previously related premises of the new model of the University, tutoring becomes essential content of the exercise of university teaching today. Tutorial models have been implemented in an increasing number of educational systems that show the diversity of the teacher-tutor's action strategies and homogeneity in the training objectives and intentions of these professionals. Some think of the figure of the tutor as a novelty in educational systems, ignoring all the tradition that humanity has accumulated in this regard. It can be assured that the antecedents of the figure of the guardian have their roots in the 5th and 4th century BC in the figure of Socrates (469-399 BC),with his disciple Plato and the use of Socratic dialogue with the maxim "know yourself" as a challenge to the knowledge of human virtues, in order to lead an equally correct life. Later his disciple, Aristotle was in turn tutor of the future emperor Alexander the Great, who taught him love of art and poetry, emphasizing the role of repetition that leads to habit and imitation as an instrument par excellence. (3) (5).
The origins of tutoring, in its educational meaning, go back to ancient Greece, in Homer's time, preceptors were hired who give an integral formation based on affection and example, the figures of Phoenix, tutor of Achilles and mentor are classic of Telemachus the son of Ulysses. Since this time, the role of the tutor with his tutoring work is considered as a method that should guide, advise and educate children and young people.
Already in our time in Anglo-Saxon schools, teachers offer face-to-face personalized attention sessions, which they call Tutoring or Supervising, depending on their character. In the United States, some educational institutions follow a model that contemplates that together with the distribution of teaching hours in front of the group, the teacher participates in seminars with a small number of students. As for the students, their main activities are: attending the sessions of the courses, studying in the library, participating in seminars and discussing the work with the tutor. (2) (3).
The closest antecedents to the idea of academic tutoring are those of the University of Oxford, in which the student has a weekly meeting with the professor (tutor) assigned to him. The student prepares one essay per week to discuss orally with her tutor, which does not exclude the use of other educational supports such as: additional reading, classes, libraries, laboratory practices, conferences, etc.
One of the best-known tutoring models is the one implemented by the Open University. It is a form of academic and personalized tutoring, widely used in the UK. Students independently study the materials prepared for each of the programs and meet with their tutors in schools and summer schools to solve learning problems in general and for objectives related to tutoring in particular. Tutorials with multiple content and educational purposes can be developed, with the intention that the student can “learn to learn”. (3) (5).
Until recently, tutoring in the Spanish university field was conceived as a space of time dedicated to clarifying unresolved doubts in classes. With the passage of time, this idea has been modified until it has completely changed, as a consequence of their recognition in the European Higher Education area. Currently, tutoring is beginning to be oriented towards a comprehensive and individualized conception of teaching. To do this, tutorial action plans are the ideal instrument to concretely develop the function of tutoring and personal, academic and professional guidance with students. As a framework in which the criteria and procedures for the organization and operation of the tutors are specified,it includes the objectives and lines of action to be developed by the tutors in the development of the subject. (6).
The tutoring system in the programs of the educational institutions in Latin America is of recent appearance and arises with the purpose of solving problems related to the desertion, the abandonment of the studies, the failure, the lag and in general with the low terminal efficiency.. The first formal and institutional mentoring program at the Bachelor's level began at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) within the Open University System (SUA), in two different modalities: individual and group. In the first, questions arising in the student's particular study process are addressed, and in the group, students' interaction with the tutor is favored to solve learning problems or to build knowledge. (3) (7).
According to the Mexican experiences, it is necessary that the role that the higher level teacher has played goes from being a simple transmitter of knowledge, to becoming a facilitator, tutor or advisor to the student, in order to achieve a training that prepares for a development in accordance with your life project.
In some Argentine universities there are tutoring experiences linked to the high number of school dropouts, where the responsibility that corresponds to university institutions in terms of prevention and treatment of this problem is valued (example UTN Facultad Regional de Bahía Blanca). Similarly, Colombian experiences are directed primarily towards the academic development of the student. (5) (7).
International experiences in the field of tutoring have in common, trying to overcome the reductionist concept of mostly prevalent tutoring (bureaucratic-academic tutoring, or resolution of doubts about a subject), to try a tutoring with a broad guiding purpose.
In the history of Cuban education we find clear examples of the work of the preceptors or tutors, such is the case of Father José Agustín Caballero (1762-1835) teacher and guide of Félix Varela, José de la Luz y Caballero and José Antonio Saco, to whom he transmitted a pedagogical, scientific and philosophical attitude or the teacher Rafael María de Mendive and his links with our Apostle José Martí.
Another example of the background of the tutoring work in Cuba is associated with the actions developed by the 3rd grade students. And 4th. Years of the Normal Schools for teachers when they were practicing at the Annex school under the supervision of a Primary Teacher or a teacher from the Normal School, which have been maintained for more than forty years in teacher training, where students They maintain a pre-professional work associated with a practicing teacher, who guides them in the appropriate modes of action to practice teaching. (2) (3).
In our country, the figure of the tutor has traditionally been associated with the scientific-methodological assistance provided by a specialist of recognized prestige and tradition in a certain field of knowledge, either to the student who as part of his scientific student work must develop investigative skills to Through extracurricular work, course work and in the terminal phase of his career, he prepares his degree thesis as a professional or the university graduate who performs post-graduate improvement studies aimed at acquiring a scientific degree, either as a diploma, master or PhD student.
In all cases, the tutelary activity involves, on the one hand, guiding the applicant in the research process so that it is creative, efficient and with a high degree of independence in the search, selection and use of available methods and means. On the other hand, it implies the orientation of the process of generalization, systematization and presentation of the results achieved once the research objectives have been met. (3) (7) (8).
Within the set of elements that make up the Battle of Ideas, is the Universalization of Cuban Higher Education with the creation of the Municipal University Venues (SUM), as a multiplication and enrichment of this education subsystem. The learning process in the different pedagogical models that work in these Headquarters is developed on the basis of three main components: the independent study, the scientific-technical information services and the system of face-to-face activities, so-called because they take place in presence and under the direction of teachers; This system is constituted, among others, by tutoring and it is stated that each student will be attended by a tutor, who individually advises him,guides and helps in the effort to overcome university studies and contribute to their comprehensive training.
Development
We must understand the concept of tutoring as a specific purpose that starts from a global monitoring to attend to the different aspects of the development, maturation, orientation and learning of the students. The monitoring can be carried out individually by detecting and learning about possible difficulties or problems that the student may present or within their natural group, seeking to improve relationships and coexistence, promoting attitudes of cooperation and tolerance, being a direct participant in the organization of the classroom and the center itself. (22).
Trying to assume a definition of tutoring as a tutor activity implies going into a complex subject, if we take into account the diversity of criteria that are included in the bibliography, among them we can mention:
Marchesi (1986) defines tutoring as “A set of technical supports aimed at both students and educational agents, its object is to achieve the maximum adjustment between individual potential and educational requirements in order to achieve greater training for students in their personal development and learning. The work to be done in any tutorial process is very complex. The diversity of situations requires the help of different professionals in education to try to give guidance and solutions to problems ”. (12)
Bavativa de González (1986) "Mentoring is considered as a set of activities that promote learning situations and support the proper development of the academic process so that oriented and motivated students develop their own process autonomously."
Álvarez-Bisquerra (1996), tutoring is defined “As a systematic, specific, concrete action in time and space (legally one hour a week in the classroom), in which the student receives special attention, either individually or group, and that should be considered as a personalized action '' because:
a.) It contributes to comprehensive education, favoring the development of all aspects of the person: their own identity, value system, personality, sociability.
b.) It adjusts the educational response to the particular needs, preventing and directing the possible difficulties.
c.) It guides the decision-making process towards the different training itineraries and the different professional options.
d.) It favors relationships within the group as a fundamental element of cooperative learning, of socialization.
e.) It contributes to the proper relationship and interaction of the members of the educational community as they are all agents and fundamental elements of this environment (14).
Arrecillas Casas (2002) “Tutoring is a teaching activity that helps the integration of the school experience in general, and the extracurricular daily life of the student and / or group based on their interests and academic needs to advance towards their independence and maturity, and act freely in their own educational process. ''
Herrera Rodríguez (2006) '' It is a guiding activity typical of the educational teaching process within the framework of the integral conception of education. Tutoring is an element inherent to the teaching function that has special characteristics in higher education that should be highlighted and that are related to the achievements of the student's development and its projection towards the group and the future, so that the tutoring is framed within the personalized process of helping the student in his progressive personal and social fulfillment, and in his intellectual development, so that he is able to discover his academic and social capacities and opportunities, in the practice of which he can find success and satisfaction. (2) (3) (15).
These definitions, although different, present common elements that allow us to delimit the tutorial activity such as:
1. The work to be carried out in all tutorial teaching is very complex and requires the harmonious participation of: tutors, teacher-tutor, the rest of the pedagogical group, family, community, academic structures and the institution (management).
2. Tutoring is considered a modality of teaching activity that includes a systematized set of educational actions focused on learning.
3. It is different and at the same time complementary to teaching in front of the group.
4. It constitutes an option to achieve equity in terms of opportunities for permanence and completion of studies.
5. It allows raising the quality of training and terminal efficiency in higher-level institutions.
6. The tutoring is focused on the personality and awakens awareness of its possibilities and limitations (personalized work with the student).
7. In the tutorial method, the student can ask all kinds of questions and complement the teaching received.
8. The exercise of tutoring falls on a teacher-tutor who assumes the training process as a task, in which the student must acquire fullness as a person. Therefore, this professional must possess a set of skills that allow him to be a manager of educational processes in the different moments and situations that he faces with the student.
9. Mentoring is a developer educational model, since it is conceived as a process focused on human growth and professional training, which is specified through personalized and systematic attention to a student or a small group, so that they are able to master the resources of your training; they appropriate a system of knowledge and values that determine the active and creative vital position in their academic, personal and social performance.
10. It is a guiding activity typical of the teaching-educational process within the framework of the integral conception of education.
The tutorial function is a teaching task and supports the teacher-student relationship and its objective content, that is, the teaching-learning relationship. For what is defined, the functions of the teacher-tutor as the activities that must be carried out to achieve the educational orientation of its students.
The Educational Orientation, as a primary function of the tutor, we can divide it didactically:
- Personal guidance. Academic orientation. Professional orientation.
Personal orientation, so that the student:
- Know yourself and get an objective idea of yourself, of your possibilities. Be aware of your life goals, your interests and abilities, for the construction of your life project. Decide appropriately and take responsibility for the decisions made. Get to self-orientation.
Academic orientation, with the aim that the student:
- Get to know your capacities and skills in the field of learning (your profile as a student). Be aware of what you should reinforce according to the content of the study program (learning difficulties). Be guided in the choice of study content and academic tasks. Be aware of the condition of being a student. Properly use intellectual work techniques that improve your academic performance. Increase satisfaction with intellectual work. Train for self-employment: learn to learn.
Professional guidance, with the aim that the student:
- Be aware of your professional goals, your real expectations. Learn what the daily exercise of the chosen specific profession requires, not only the most excellent and idyllic. Analyze the capacities and qualities in which you must excel: organizational capacity, initiative, perseverance, responsibility, cooperation, communication, decision, resistance to frustration …… (2) (3) (6) (15).
The content of the educational orientation can be specified in:
1. The need to help the individual to know himself and his environment, starting from the individual-society dialectical unit, the value of which lies in the fact that the personality is inserted actively and creatively in the environment.
2. The need for the individual to develop the ability to use their intelligence to make decisions and make the most of their potential for development, in accordance with the opportunities offered; it's about stimulating your self-direction.
3. The regular systematic-procedural nature that the orientation work must have.
4. The need for guidance that every individual has.
General characteristics of the tutoring
In essence, the following can be assumed as general characteristics of tutoring:
- It is a continuous educational orientation process aimed at all students.
- Mentoring as an educational teaching process must have a developer character structured on the basis of a diagnosis of the potential and lack of students.
- It is a process that is structured from a holistic conception of personality development.
- It is specified through the coordination work carried out by the teacher-tutor with the different educational agents that structure a system made up of the school, the family, the community and the organizations to which the students are linked.
- The characteristics of the tutoring sessions must be adapted to the needs and contexts in which the teaching-educational processes take place in each institution.
- It is an active, bilateral and dynamic process that ensures the proper insertion of the student into the academic environment to promote their satisfactory progress in studies during various moments and situations throughout their academic and personal training.
- It must be systematically planned with a medium and long-term forecast, in periods equivalent to the corresponding educational stages; It involves a learning process through academic activities to make the most of the services offered by the institution.
- It involves an activity that requires complementarity through the collaboration of all the educational agents involved: teachers, organizations, student groups, the community, etc.
- The curriculum should be the framework where the tutorial activities are developed with an interdisciplinary and integrative approach based on the desired graduation profiles.
- It is a process that supports, guides and evaluates the student's learning process by giving feedback in accordance with the pedagogical diagnosis that all orientation activities must mediate.
- It must promote self-preparation, by allowing the student to identify their own potentials and shortcomings, thus strengthening their autonomy through recommendations that support their development strategies and personal growth, which is gathered and projected in the plan of tutorial work. (2) (3) (12) (15) (16).
Tutor teacher:
In the framework of the current transformations of Education worldwide, every teacher is a tutor, the teaching activity, in terms of teacher-student relationship, does not end with the only relationship that can occur in the teaching-learning activity, but it transcends the formation of the personality.
The figure of the teacher-tutor has been resized in the new model of university that we aspire to build, it has been assigned the honorable mission of directing the process of comprehensive and multifaceted training of the future citizen committed to the society where he lives. Therefore, the professionals involved in the transformations of Higher Education must be clear that the teacher-tutor is not an orientation specialist or technician, but rather a teacher who receives a social assignment in their work activity: the personal orientation of certain number of students to achieve an education of their personality at the highest possible level.
The tutor is an academic figure whose mission is to direct the educational education process, which according to our experiences, is a process of integration and coordination of influences exercised by teachers, student groups, student organizations, the family, the community and your own actions as a teacher. In other words, it globalizes, integrates and coordinates the influences exerted by all the teachers in the group on the students who tutor and integrate the school-family-community relations in the context of their actions. It is an entity that brings together and stimulates the action of the institutions, people and organizations that intervene in the teaching-educational process. (2) (3) (9) (10) (12).
As a tutor, the teacher must guide the student in their incorporation into the social and academic environment; Recommend study practices and work discipline that ensure that you take full advantage of the services offered by the institution, and advise you to overcome the difficulties that arise during your studies.
What has been proposed so far allows us to define the teacher-tutor in Higher Education as "An educator responsible for integrating the system of educational influences, whose modes of action are identified with guiding in the different areas of student training, promoting personal growth and the development of self-determination is who accompanies it throughout the entire course of higher education, providing it with the necessary support for decision-making in the face of problems, from personalized action ”. (9) (10) (12) (16).
How you can appreciate the personalized attention that the tutor must offer to the student who goes through the different years of their university studies is of vital importance. Among the reasons that support it are: the educational diversity that enters this level of education, the existence of a curriculum that requires a process of gradual acquisition of increasingly complex knowledge, attitudes, habits and cognitive abilities, in addition to the acquisition of a value system demanded by higher-level studies and, in general, the dynamics of a level of education where they receive with greater rigor the demands of a science so that they are trained as professionals of the higher level.
The tutor must carry out a coordination work with the teachers, the student group, the student organizations, the family, the community to have the information that allows him to provide the help and reinforcements that each student needs. (2) (3).
Characteristics that a Teacher-Tutor must meet
The qualities of the teacher-tutor constitute a hotly debated topic in educational contexts where their presence has been claimed; they will always depend on the philosophical, sociological, psychological and pedagogical conception that one has of the conceived educational phenomenon. We can affirm that in the consulted literature, lists of qualities of the tutor appear, which we consider inherent in a definition of educator such as authenticity, emotional maturity, good character, self-understanding, empathic capacity, intelligence and mental agility, general culture, emotional stability, etc., but we consider in essence that the teacher-tutor has to be a role model, therefore it is necessary for him / her to have aptitudes to educate and be recognized as authority by students, both academic and personal authority,a pattern that students choose and decide to follow, because they see in it a competent professional.
As part of the New Formative Model, it is pertinent to determine the dimensions as basic qualities, knowledge and capacities that the tutor must gather to carry out his formative work efficiently.
Conclusions
Taking into account the aforementioned, we can conclude that in order to achieve a developmental and effective tutorial process, the presence of a professionally competent tutor teacher identified with the work he does is necessary.
Bibliography
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