El cultivo del pensamiento crítico a través de la tutoría universitaria: una nueva oportunidad tras la Covid-19

Abstract

University tutoring is, with some exceptions, in a state that should concern us. The model in recent years is sporadic, optional meetings generally used to clarify doubts about academic content, solve problems with completing tasks, review assessment results, and find solutions for students’ personal problems that affect their progress in modules. This model of tutoring may make it possible to resolve problems, but it is a limited and insubstantial version of what it could be. There is case for saying that its leitmotiv is university character education, principally what has come to be called the critical spirit or thinking. In addition, it seems that this is what the contemporary social and professional reality misses and demands: university graduates who think for themselves, always seek the truth of things, and focus on the common good. Covid-19, with all of the impact it has had for universities, especially ones that work face-to-face, offers a new opportunity for tutoring, an opportunity to reestablish it. The new situation has brought both a pedagogical-technological message and an ethical one. Both can reestablish tutoring as an ongoing, deep, and unending conversation that enriches other university situations and opens doors that lead to the best version of oneself. This work has a three-part objective: to present arguments that hold that the main purpose of tutoring is cultivation of the critical spirit or thinking; to identify obstacles raised some years ago and possibilities that the new situation brings; and, finally, to suggest a series of future-oriented conclusions so that our universities can give tutoring the place it deserves in line with their circumstances.