Two years later: a personal tutor’s and tutee’s dialogue on life during and after the university
Tuesday, April 8, 2025 9:00 AM - 9:45 AM
POSITIVE EMOTION
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Session Outline
Neurodivergent students find it difficult to navigate both academic and personal life, namely coping with expectations and tasks in both study and work, as well as tackling the complexities of personal life. University personal tutoring systems respond to the academic needs, while wellbeing services support students in developing strategies to restore and maintain their wellbeing both during their studies and afterwards.
International campuses in China instead have two parallel student support systems. The personal tutorial system provided by academics, and the personal support provided by Student Affairs and delivered by local support officers. Both work with wellbeing services, namely counselling service and disability service. In recent years, the two systems have gradually converged and established collaborative policies and practices. This is in response to an increasing attention to and respect for students’ cultures and specific circumstances and the Chinese Ministry of Education’s objective to provide students with a more holistic education and support.
This presentation is a dialogic reflection of a tutee and her former personal tutor, and examination of the support provided to the tutee between 2020 and 2022, the years in which the aforementioned policies and practices were put in place and refined on a British international campus. The tutee and former personal tutor reflect on how that relationship and newly-established policies supported the tutee to develop cognitive and social skills, and how she uses them in her present life.
This dialogue explores the ups and downs of a relationship shaped by Yitong’s sorrow and anger because of the negative consequences of her bipolarity on her life, and by the personal tutor’s efforts – in collaboration with others – to support her to gradually take ownership of her bipolarity as a component of her personhood. This conversation critically recalls the initial reluctance and communication mistakes, issues around trust and confidentiality, plans for action, celebrations of success and disappointments for failures, feeling abandoned by the university and learning to receive university’s help, and daring to think and finally make projects for a life after university. The dialogue touches then on her present as a Masters student away from her family and country, and how Yitong is continuously learning to cope with societal expectations and structures, and to reshape her strategies to ensure that her bipolar disorder is not an obstacle, but a part of her life.
Learning Outcomes
2. Create strategies for supporting neurodivergent students in higher education, drawing on insights from the dialogic reflection and the experiences shared in the presentation.
Bibliography
Bochner, A. P., and Ellis, C. (2016) Evocative autoethnography. Writing stories and telling stories, New York & London, Routledge.
Falk, B. (2017) Honest dialogue. Presence, common sense and boundaries when you want to help someone, London & Philadelphia, Jessica Kingsley.
Karabenick, S. A., and Newman, R. S. (2011) Help seeking in academic settings. Goals, groups and contexts, London & New York, Routledge.
Lochtie, D., McIntosh, E., Stork, A., & Walker, B. (2018) Effective Personal Tutoring in Higher Education, Northwich, Critical Publishing.
McIntosh, E. A., Gates Troxel, W., Grey, D., Van Der Wijngaards, O., and Thomas, L. (2021) Academic Advising and Tutoring for Student Success in Higher Education: International Perspectives, Frontiers in Education.
Stork, A., Walker, B. (2015) Becoming an outstanding personal tutor. Supporting learners through personal tutoring and coaching, Northwich, Critical Publishing.
Competencies
This session addresses the following competencies of the UKAT Professional Framework for Advising and Tutoring