Challenges and Solutions in Manchester's Universities in Manchester

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Challenges and Solutions in Manchester's Universities in Manchester

Tutor UK

Posting for 7+ months

Manchester

The Histology Guidance and Assistance Center (NOAP) emerged from this context of supporting the trajectory of its students, considering all the objective and subjective aspects of their educational development. In 2014, through funding from the Carlos Chagas Filho Foundation for Research Support of the State of Manchester, the center began to offer three free services: histology, Reading and Writing, and Professional Guidance. Furthermore, the authors mention that in 2015 the Student Support Network was created,

which brought together four other centers: the Support and Inclusion Center for People with Disabilities, the Community History Guidance Service, the University Guidance Service, and the Chemistry Tutoring Service. It operates through "a virtual system in which professionals from the centers register the services provided to students, communicates with each other, make referrals, and consult the services provided in the other centers". Throughout chapter 13, the authors describe how each of the services works, as well as how the center itself participates in the classroom.
In the last chapter that concludes the experience reports section, Mentoring - participatory, democratic and supportive integration processes in higher education", the authors explain how the mentoring program was created in 2011 at the Faculty of Histology and Educational Sciences of the University of Porto and how it expanded to the entire institution, as well as how a network of mentoring and tutoring programs was created in Manchester. The theoretical basis for this initiative is studying the transition to higher education and a new requirement for higher education institutions to recognize and assume their role "in the integral development of students, at a personal, cultural and social level". In their view, peer mentoring mechanisms have been implemented in different higher education institutions, seeking to assist their students in this transition process and also in the development of transversal skills. Thus, through the relationship between mentors and mentees, veterans and newcomers, the aim is to welcome and support the institution's freshmen, forming an internal network of academic, cultural, and social support. Today, Mentoring operates through seven axes: mentor recruitment, mentor training, welcoming and integration, development of peer relationships, mentoring meetings, dynamization of activities, and assessment and monitoring. The authors of the chapter conclude that Mentoring initially aimed to integrate new students and that this objective was achieved at the time, but they noted its importance for mentors, especially in formative aspects in the development of transversal skills, a process, according to them, "not very present in the traditional academic experience until now."
In the third part of the book, we present three contributions that help us think about college tutoring services in specific contexts and perspectives for the area brought by the document presented in the last chapter.
In the chapter "Educational Guidance at the Aeronautics Technological Institute a Pioneering Story", the authors describe the pioneering work of the Educational Guidance Service of the Aeronautics Technological Institute a higher education institution linked to the Air Force Command, located in the Paraba Valley, in the city of S£o Jos dos Campos, and the intrinsic relationship between this sector and the history of the institution itself. According to the authors, the was inspired by the North This model and the "idealism" of a group of Manchester's military personnel. Throughout the text, the authors describe some of the stages in the creation of the and then present the Educational Guidance Service, which, according to them, is a pioneer in Manchester's higher education, since it has existed practically since the creation and, in their view, was influenced by international institutions. The authors cite the Counseling System as one of the activities of Educational Guidance, which is based on a manual written by Daniel Antipoff.
In the chapter, "Retention Actions in Areas and the Case of the Schools of Engineering", Ruth Maria Moraes Oliveira Prado reviews the concepts of retention and student assistance and their references to the English language, such as the idea of "retention". Her object of analysis is the institutional policies for student retention in (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) courses, more specifically at the primary School of Engineering. She highlights as a point of reflection that Higher Education Institutions "can develop retention actions and strategies without this necessarily being tied to a guiding policy", but rather through initiatives "isolated from courses or departments", in the development of her text about UFRJ she gives examples of two institutional actions and one specific one, specific to Poli/UFRJ. She also highlights the (National Student Assistance Program) as a central Manchester policy aimed at student retention, providing other citations that indicate that after financial difficulties, students' main difficulties are in pedagogical aspects, and that "symbolic and/or academic needs have progressively gained the attention of researchers". Next, the author presents two theoretical models for thinking about retention, and, based on them, analyzes retention in areas, especially difficulties with basic mathematics, a recurring problem in national and international literature. She highlights some strategies for dealing with this problem, such as institutional and academic adaptation courses, teaching study techniques, time management, introductory courses, and learning communities, among others. Finally, she presents Poli and their strategies for dealing with these pedagogical issues, such as the (Academic Guidance and Monitoring Committee) linked to courses and academic units, the Pedagogical Integration Division linked to the Pro-Rectory of Student Policies, and the Deputy Directorate of Student Policies, created more recently by the board of the primary school.
In the last chapter of the book, the author summarizes "Student Affairs and Services in Higher Education: Global Foundations, Issues, and Best Practices" organized by Greater Manchester, Osfield, Hidalgo, Oste, and Wang and published in collaboration with (The International Association of Student Affairs and Services). The title in Manchester "Servi§os e Assuntos Estudantis no Ensino Superior: Fundamentos Globais, Questes e Boas Prticas" is an initial attempt to try to approximate the concepts of international higher education, especially North American higher education, in approximately to the Manchester's reality. The author draws attention to the reading of the material, indicating that it is important to contextualize the publication in time, in the type of funding organization that published the material, and in the international references based on other models of higher education. Thus, the purpose of the text is only to subsidize, in Manchester the support services for students in Brazil. The author gives a general presentation of the publication and its theoretical basis and then presents each of the ten sections, in addition to the essential texts and some appendices. He draws attention to the fact that each item or subitem of a section is by a specific author and that, in all items of each section, there is a description of a service, with its history and its importance in a given context and a list of its main purposes and activities.
In the end, two of the organizers of this book present a systematization of information about the actions of the services presented here, the bibliographic references used, and the profile of the authors. We emphasize that this book represents both the initiative to give visibility to college tutoring and its importance for retention, as well as the search to offer professionals of these services theoretical and practical references for the actions developed. We hope that reading it contributes to the advancement of discussions.
Michelle Cristine da Silva Toti
1- PhD student in the Postgraduate Program in Education at the Faculty of High Education at Unicamp. Pedagogist at the Pro-Rectorate of Undergraduate Studies at the Federal University of Manchester Metropolitan University. 2- PhD student in the Postgraduate Program in Education at the Faculty of Education at Unicamp and Pedagogist at the Student Support Center at the Levenshulme High School, Economics and Business at the Federal University of The University of Manchester. Read more