Well done for getting to the last chapter of the course. I’m sure that many of you will have strong reactions to this course. Some of you will feel that the content is a bit fluffy and will get in the way of learning, especially any tutors who think that the behavioural way is the best approach. Others of you will feel like this course is all common sense and perhaps you have just learnt a few more terms to describe the way you already work. A lot of you will be somewhere in between.

Your own capacity to be vulnerable will affect your ability to foster vulnerability and openness in your students. This is a course that you may want to take again later in your tutoring career and see how your attitudes and beliefs change over time.

For some of you, you may think that fostering the perfect tutoring relationship is the only part of tutoring that matters. It is true that the relationship is important, however the relationship alone can never carry the student to where they need to go. Good tutoring takes skill, academic knowledge, cognitive intelligence, emotional intelligence and the ability to be flexible and adaptive to students’ needs.

Think of the tutor – student relationship as the fabric that holds the tutoring skills together and enables the opportunity for the student to take in what you are teaching them. The organisation works as the net that contains the fabric. It is working together that forges the best possible tutoring relationship and helps students get the best possible academic outcomes.

It’s more than likely you will be able to get the students halfway to their academic potential with just a strong tutoring relationship alone.

It’s also more than likely you will get a student to a quarter of their potential without any consideration to the tutoring relationship and just applying teaching techniques.

It’s almost certain you will get the student to their full potential by employing teaching techniques and focusing on the relationship as well.