Access the Personal Academic Tutoring dashboard
All of our students have access to a range of support to maximise the outcomes of their time learning with us. Personal Academic Tutors should meet with their tutees each term to check-in on their academic progress and engagement, and to discuss things like study choices. You should also signpost students to other services, like Careers, Student Support and Wellbeing or the Academic Communications Centre, who can provide them with specialist forms of support where appropriate.
The nature of the relationship means you will often deal with a range of situations that require a sensitive and informed approach. The most important thing a you can do when a student comes to you for help, is to listen.
Any local support offered by you, as a Personal Academic Tutor, and your department is reinforced by a wide infrastructure of support services available across UCL. You should feel confident to refer and signpost to this support as appropriate.
All students on taught programmes at UCL are assigned a Personal Academic Tutor and can access student facing information here.
Supporting students as a Personal Academic Tutor
Be an accessible point of contact
Aligning with our organisational values of care and respect, providing regular opportunities to check-in can help ensure student welfare and put in place support if needed.
You will offer and organise at least one meeting (minimum of 15-minutes) per term with your tutees. These can be individual (1-2-1) or in small groups, taking place in-person or online. You might wish to do this using MS Bookings.
You will monitor attendance and keep a summary record of meetings with tutees. You should also make yourself available to tutees, outside of termly meetings, during Office Hours and via email.
Provide academic and professional development support
As a Personal Academic Tutor, you play a vital role in supporting students, the delivery of education and student experience.
You might provide advice on the following:
- Academic (programme/disciplinary related) support – module selection, module and assessment marks, goals, and how to improve.
- Academic skills – study skills, time planning, revision/assessment skills, using previous feedback, writing, presentations, plagiarism and academic integrity awareness. Specialist support is also available on the Student Academic/Study skills hub.
- Professional skills – discipline specific career planning and networking, applying for further study and/or internships. For specialist careers advice, students should consult UCL Careers.
- Engagement and making the most out of their time at university and making friends - how to participate in department social activities; how to become an Academic Representative or join a Department Society or club in the Students' Union; how to find out about research, volunteering and other development opportunities.
Students can expect to receive academic references from their Personal Academic Tutor on request.
Understand the wider support network available to students
You should be aware of support and resources from central UCL services to signpost students where appropriate. For example:
Support for Personal Academic Tutors
UCL HEDS (Higher Education & Development Support) offers a range of training, workshops and resources to staff who are involved in personal academic tutoring.
You can also join the Personal Academic Tutoring at UCL Community of Practice on Microsoft Teams where colleagues share knowledge of and activities for engaging with and supporting tutees.
Personal Academic Tutoring Dashboard
MediaCentral Widget Placeholderhttps://mediacentral.ucl.ac.uk/Player/HIdiJdhA
Personal Academic Tutors across UCL can access a new digital platform to support their role from the start of the 2024/25 academic year. The dashboard will help you to easily find relevant data to help support students and their academic progress. It will pull together data such as tutees’ attendance and academic progress to allow staff to review it in one place.
The dashboard is one of several recommendations arising from the Personal Academic Tutor Review. Read the Personal Academic Tutor Review conclusions and recommendations in full here. We anticipate that, in time, the dashboard will also monitor personal academic tutoring meeting attendance, store meeting records and student references.
Personal Academic Tutor/tutee allocations are managed through Portico. Speak to your departmental professional service education team to check your tutee assignments are correct to get access to your tutee dashboards.
Template Personal Academic Tutor and Department role descriptors
These template role descriptors are provided to give an indication of the typical responsibilities of Personal Academic Tutors and Department Tutors/ Heads of Academic Support and Student Welfare.
The descriptors aim to help you understand what these roles entail and what their expected activities may include, including to help establish what falls out of scope.
Supporting your wellbeing as a Personal Academic Tutor
Personal academic tutoring can be difficult and it is important to look after your own wellbeing.
We provide guidance about how to look after your own mental health and wellbeing as well as training on mental health first aid on the Resources for Personal Academic Tutors page.
Additional resources
Along with the workshops and online course offered by the UCL Arena Centre, there are a range of additional resources for new and experienced staff working in Personal Academic Tutoring roles – including summaries of support provisions, toolkits, case studies and offerings from external organisations.
Close
