What do tutors learn from monitoring?

Abstract

Over 400,000 written assignments are sent by Open University students to their tutors in a year. A sample of each tutor's marked assignments (TMAs) is monitored by a full‐time academic, to assess the quality of teaching comment and grading, to provide a report to the tutor's regional staff tutor, and to report back to the course team on the general effectiveness of the assignment. But who monitors the monitors? Do they provide genuine help to tutors to help them to improve their teaching, or does the monitoring process limp along as a crude safety check against poor practice? Margaret Miers has tutored on eight courses and reflects on the experience and on the prospects.