Discomfort at the coalface : issues for sessional tutors teaching in online enhanced learning environments

Higher education institutions are undergoing a period of rapid change during which time a number of strategic professional development efforts have been made to improve teaching in order to improve students’ learning outcomes. Sessional tutors, who are consistently at the coalface and have close contact with students, have often been excluded from formal opportunities for professional development offered to more permanent staff. This anomaly is now being recognised and more efforts are being made across the sector to ensure that tutors are better equipped to teach in contemporary learning environments. This paper discusses issues of concern to tutors that arose from recent professional development workshops and suggests that some of the major issues currently confronting sessional staff relate to the need to be able to teach effectively in online enhanced learning environments.