Information, Advice and Guidance

I’m surprised on the amount of Information Advice and Guidance (IAG) required by learners on this course at such an early stage; they haven’t even completed a term yet.  In my previous position learners were nowhere near ready for university, educationally or emotionally, so the Universities & Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) paperwork and procedures was not within the remit of my job.  I have been impressed by the amount of information the students have access to so they can make a fully informed decision which course and university to apply to.  All this information, including details of learning outcomes and assessment criteria, offers students ‘self-propelled guidance since they can look up details of courses in the library and increasingly on the Internet’ (Evans, 2001: 51).  Most of the students I have spoken to have a clear idea of their options and which courses they would like to apply to.  They have found out a lot for themselves but tutors have also provided them with a lot of IAG to help them come to the most appropriate decisions. 

IAG is an important part of most tutors’ jobs, as the aim of most courses is to help students progress, but I can’t think that I have had any training specifically to deal with this.  As a tutor you gain an idea about progression routes but I don’t know if this is really good enough for such an important element of a course for learners!

References

Evans, N. (2001) The Institute for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education: Institutions, Academics and the Assessment of Prior Experiential Learning. London: Routledge Falmer.