Tutorial System

At Cambridge University and Oxford University, undergraduates are taught in the tutorial system. Students are taught by faculty fellows in groups of one to three on a weekly basis. 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 weekly essays or work 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 tutor and fellow-students. As a pedagogic model, the tutorial system has great value because it creates learning and assessment opportunities which are highly authentic and difficult to fake.

Outside of the United Kingdom, Williams College in Massachusetts has a rigorous and successful tutorial system in many of its junior and senior level classes. The system has been used in other academic institutions too (for example, by the Honors Tutorial College of Ohio University).