Understanding in-situ participation-based development of non-professional tutors in short-relay teaching

Short-relay teaching is an emerging approach that offers a practical means of expanding one-on-one education for children in low-resource settings. In short-relay teaching, non-professional tutors utilize mobile technology to take turns teaching children remotely through short sessions without separate preparation. This study explores the challenges faced by non-professional volunteer tutors during short-relay teaching and their development through their teaching experiences, as a step toward enabling in-situ participation-based tutor development . The study takes the flow of interaction as its primary focus of observation and reflection as the lens through which to analyse and interpret the tutors’ growth. The constraints inherent in short relay sessions heighten urgency and uncertainty, and amplify the delicacy of communication, posing substantial challenges for non-professional tutors as they navigate the sessions. Nevertheless, we observed reflection-in-action occurring both within individual sessions and across repeated sessions, which in turn supported the development of their tutoring practices. Despite the brevity of the sessions and the lack of prior relationships, the one-on-one format allowed tutors to focus closely on their interaction with a single child, which appeared to facilitate reflection and the development of their tutoring practices. This study provides insights into how non-professional volunteer tutors, with only minimal guidance, can establish meaningful interactions with children they meet for the first time within a highly constrained timeframe. This research suggests that short-relay teaching, originally conceived to increase children’s opportunities for interaction and thereby support their learning, could also foster tutors’ reflection and the development of affective interaction practices through focused, one-on-one encounters with children across repeated sessions.