Tutorial system

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both University of Cambridge and University of Oxford, undergraduates are taught in the tutorial system. Students are taught by faculty fellows in groups of one to three. At Cambridge, these are called "supervisions" and at Oxford they are called "tutorials." One benefit of the tutorial system is that students receive direct feedback on their essays in a small discussion setting.

Student tutorials are generally more academically challenging and rigorous than standard lecture and test format courses, because during each session students are expected to orally communicate, defend, analyze, and critique the ideas of others as well as their own in conversations with the professor and fellow-students. As a pedagogic model, the tutorial system has great value because it creates learning and assessment opportunities which highly authentic and difficult to fake. See Palfreyman, D. (2008) 'The Oxford Tutorial' (OxCHEPS) - also available on-line at www.oxcheps.new.ox.ac.uk (Papers page, Item 1).