Guidance and training

Training is an important part of your teaching and tutoring role. It will help you to enhance your teaching skills and will also further your professional development beyond your current tutoring position. To support this, our School offers a minimum of 8 hours training/professional development to PG tutors per annum.

Training for new tutors

For first time tutors, most of the training sessions are mandatory to support you and help you get started with your tutoring role (see Timetable below). Two of the sessions (Induction and School-Specific Teaching Training) are in-house training sessions, and these will take place before semester 1 commences. The remaining two sessions will be delivered by the Institute for Academic Development (IAD). Once you have accepted your offer and you are set to teach either in semester 1 or 2, you should be booking a space on the next available training sessions.

Training for continuing tutors

If you are a continuing tutor, then you should have undertaken some of the mandatory IAD training when you first started in your role and you do not have to undertake the training again. We have added some other interesting training opportunities to the Timetable below that you may want to explore. These are just suggestions that you may find helpful. We will set up drop-in sessions for you to discuss your professional development needs at the end of August. The Induction and in-house training will remain mandatory for continuing tutors.

Support for tutors and demonstrators from the IAD

Timetable 2023/2024

Training	Date	Mandatory
Professional Development Drop-in	September	Optional
Induction Training	September	All tutors
School-Specific Tutoring Training	September	All tutors
An Introduction to Online Tutoring - IAD	Semester 1	First time tutors
Effective Tutoring Introduction - IAD	Semester 1	First time tutors
Assessment and Providing Feedback - IAD	Semester 1	First time tutors

If you want to explore other tutor teaching options, then you can visit the IAD orientation website. IAD have also put together resources for teaching and tutoring, which cover areas such as classroom teaching, interacting with students, how to develop your teaching and gaining accreditation. IAD have also put together some factsheets (infographics) related to a wide variety of topics (e.g., Teaching Online, Problem Solving Classes, Assessment and Feedback), which you may find helpful.

IAD - Infographics

IAD - Learn Resources

If you have any specific queries about these resources or other IAD-related materials/workshops, please contact: iad.tutdem@ed.ac.uk.

The university uses a wide range of different online platforms and technologies. Your course organiser will have chosen platforms, technologies and activities that do not require specialist technological skills to use. If you are uncertain about what you are using, please approach your course organiser in the first instance.

Feedback on training

The training we are providing should support your teaching and help you to build new skills and also enhance your existing skills. If you have any feedback on the provided training in terms of usefulness, or ideas on how to expand/improve training opportunities, you can either send a message to tutors.health@ed.ac.uk or to Monja Knoll (monja.knoll@ed.ac.uk). Alternatively, you should have been added to our Tutor Team space (please send us a request to join if you haven’t), and you can provide feedback in the relevant training channel.

Accreditation for tutors and demonstrators

You may want to seek official accreditation for your teaching. There are different routes for you to do so, please visit the link below to the Institute for Academic Development.