At Cambridge University, Oxford University and Queen's University Belfast, 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 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

Professor

A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...

 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

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

, 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 Honors Tutorial College

Honors Tutorial College

The Honors Tutorial College at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio is the only degree-granting tutorial program in the United States. The tutorial program is modeled after Oxford and Cambridge universities in England, and is centered on the tutorial, in which students meet individually with a professor...

 of Ohio University

Ohio University

Ohio University is a public university located in the Midwestern United States in Athens, Ohio, situated on an campus...

 in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

).

Further reading

• Adamson, J. W. [Briefest of references to the Oxford Tutorial in] "Education." In From Steel and Addison to Pope and Swift. Vol. 9 of The Cambridge History of English Literature, ed. A. W. Ward and A. R. Waller, 459. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1913. This extremely short excerpt can be read through Google Books.
• Bailey, Cyril. "The Tutorial System." Revised by J. B. Bamborough. In Handbook to the University of Oxford, 279–286(?). Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965.
• Beck, Robert J. "The Pedagogy of the Oxford Tutorial." Paper presented at the Tutorial Education: History, Pedagogy, and Evolution conference, Lawrence University, Appleton, WI, March 31 – April 1, 2007. See http://individualizedlearning.org/conference/tutorials/2007/rbeck.shtml.
• Brewer, Derek. "The Tutor: A Portrait." In C. S. Lewis at the Breakfast Table and Other Reminiscences, new ed., ed. James T. Como, 41–67. San Diego: Harcourt Brace, Harvest, 1992. You can actually read the whole of this section through Amazon.com's "Search inside this book" feature.
• Highet, Gilbert. "Communication: Tutoring." In The Art of Teaching, 107–116. New York: Knopf, 1950.
• Kiosses, Spyriodon. "Teaching and Studying Ancient Greek Literature: A First Approach to a Case Study." Master’s thesis, University of Oxford, 1997.
• Mayr-Harting, Henry. "Oxford Tutorials." Paper presented at the Tutorial Education: History, Pedagogy, and Evolution conference, Lawrence University, Appleton, WI, March 31 – April 1, 2007. See http://individualizedlearning.org/conference/tutorials/2007/mayr-harting.shtml.
• Moore, Will G. The Tutorial System and Its Future. New York: Pergamon, 1968.
• Oxford University Education Committee. Policy Guidance on Undergraduate Learning and Teaching, University of Oxford, 2008. See http://www.admin.ox.ac.uk/epsc/guidance/uglandt.pdf.
• Palfreyman, David, ed. The Oxford Tutorial: "Thanks, You Taught Me How to Think," 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford Centre for Higher Education Policy Studies, 2008. See http://oxcheps.new.ox.ac.uk/Publications/Resources/OxCHEPS_OP1_08.pdf.
• Paper 6: Tutorial Teaching. Oxford: Institute for the Advancement of University Learning, n.d. See http://www.learning.ox.ac.uk/files/Tutorial%20Teaching.pdf.
• Ryan, Alan. "The Oxford Tutorial: History and Myth." Keynote address at the Tutorial Education: History, Pedagogy, and Evolution conference, Lawrence University, Appleton, WI, March 31 – April 1, 2007. See http://individualizedlearning.org/conference/tutorials/2007/ryan-keynote.pdf.
• Shale, S. Understanding the Learning Process: Tutorial Teaching in the Context of Research into Learning in Higher Education. Oxford: Institute for the Advancement of University of Learning, 2000.
• "Subject Specific Remarks." Corpus Christi College, University of Cambridge, 2008, http://www.corpus.cam.ac.uk/undergraduates/information-for-freshers/195 (October 9, 2009).
• Trigwell, Keith and Ashwin, Paul. Undergraduate Students' Experience of Learning at the University of Oxford, Institute for the Advancement of University Learning, University of Oxford, 2003. See http://www.learning.ox.ac.uk/files/OLCPFinal.zip.
• "Tutorials." In Academic Handbook and Code of Practice for Tutorial Fellows, Other Teaching Fellows, College Lectures, [and] Graduate Teaching Assistants. Oxford: Oriel College
  Oriel College
  Oriel College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in Oxford, England. Located in Oriel Square, the college has the distinction of being the oldest royal foundation in Oxford...
  
  , 2008, 5–6. See http://www.oriel.ox.ac.uk/images/File/Current%20Members/Tutors_Academic_Handbook_2008-9.pdf.
• Waterland, Daniel. "Advice to a Young Student, with a Method of Study for the First Four Years." In The Works of the Rev. Daniel Waterland, 3rd ed., vol. 4, 393–416. Oxford: Oxford University Press
  Oxford University Press
  Oxford University Press is the largest university press in the world. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the Vice-Chancellor known as the Delegates of the Press. They are headed by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as...
  
  , 1856. Online and in PDF at http://www.archive.org/details/worksofrevdaniel04wateuoft. Of Waterland's Advice. . . it is said that it "is an outstanding monument to the theory and practice of tutorial instruction in early eighteenth-century Cambridge," from Victor Morgan, 1546–1750, vol. 2 of A History of the University of Cambridge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  Cambridge University Press
  Cambridge University Press is the publishing business of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by Henry VIII in 1534, it is the world's oldest publishing house, and the second largest university press in the world...
  
  , 2004), 342.
• Williams, Gavin. "Socrates in Stellenbosch and Tutorials in Oxford." Paper presented at the Tutorial Education: History, Pedagogy, and Evolution conference, Lawrence University, Appleton, WI, March 31 – April 1, 2007. See http://individualizedlearning.org/conference/tutorials/2007/gwilliams.pdf.