14. The role of the Tutor

The role played by the tutor is very determinant in the performance of the team because the tutor is responsible for the stimulation of interest and for more detailed and profound research carried out during the learning process. The tutor verifies the capacities development defined by the Project Guide and the presentation of the final solution found by the team; in short, it is responsible for monitoring the project process.

The tutor is responsible for discussing the peer assessment results, but the evaluation is not considered. The goal is to determine the fragilities feel in these evaluations and try forms to resolve them. It is also convenient for the mentor to try to verify the individual progress, especially for identifying the difficult contribution related to some team elements. 

Th tutor is also responsible for reporting the development/progress and the consequent team functioning, to the coordination team of the project, and reporting to the team decisions made by the coordination related to the project operation. The tutor can give valuable information to teachers of the different areas comprehended in the PBL. 

Alves et al., (2007) also include the following responsibilities: establishing greater proximity with the respective project teams; identifying team organisational problems and conveying information that is relevant to the team.

During this process, whenever necessary, the tutor provides other relevant information to the team. In the role of tutor, on the one hand, the tutor is not teaching curricular units’ contents and, on the other hand, as a person who is close to the team, the tutor is not carrying out the project, so the tutor should not present solutions regarding the content of the project, but rather, guide the student team in the most desired direction. The tutor will be able to help make decisions, resolve conflicts, deal with peer review, and also give feedback or suggest sources of information such as, for example, bibliography, UC professors, other professors, websites and information available in companies related to the theme of the project.