The number of students in higher education has expanded dramatically in recent years, but funding has not kept pace with this growth. The result is less contact time for lecturers and their students, and corresponding worries about how the quality of teaching and learning can be improved. Peer tutoring is one method which is growing in popularity, and has already proved successful in a number of countries. This book provides an introduction to the methods and practice of peer tutoring focusing on how to set up schemes and how to cope with common problems. It discusses the theory behind this form of learning and the beneficial effects associated with it. Summaries are included at the end of each chapter.
Nancy Falchikov is an Education consultant at Napier University, Edinburgh. She has worked as a teacher in Higher Education for many years, and has been researching ways of improving learning and teaching since the mid 1980s.
'The author has striven to make the text accessible to all members of the expected readership. Practical examples are plentiful, and helpful summaries are provided at the end of many chapters ... Her personal style shines through this book. While addressing abstract issues of theoretical underpinnings and evidential basis, she also manages to be personal in tone and practcical in orienatation, thereby potentially encouraging and inspiring to teachers in HE at all stages of development in their craft ... There is a great deal of useful material of many types in this book. The author has succeeded in the difficult task of combining theory, research and practice into a toolkit for onward development in teaching and learning which should prove invaluable to all of the target audience.' - Keith Topping, Educational Research