[exe34]

> The supervision system guarantees all Oxbridge students weekly, small-group tutorials,

We had that in Physics at Manchester in the 2000s. 4 students. I'm guessing they got the idea from Oxbridge, but I don't think it's been a USP for a very long time.

[quietbritishjim]

That sounds like a similar idea but I doubt it's to the same extent.

When I was at Cambridge in the early noughties, supervisions for maths and computer science (and physics I believe but I didn't go to any of those) were 2 students in 4 1-hour sessions per week (1 per 24 hour lecture course). [Edit: hmm, actually maybe it was just 2 per week.] In maths, if there were an odd number of students then one would get 1 to 1 supervisions, but I'm sure that depends on the college. For computer science, I was put in a 3 person supervision when they had an odd number (and I wasn't happy about it at the time!)

I later did teaching at UCL and Imperial and the difference was huge. When they get to it, I would advise my children to go Oxford or Cambridge in a heartbeat. (For reference, my parents were too poor to even consider university.)

[danlitt]

When I was there (maths, 2010s) it was 1 supervision per course per fortnight. You had 4 problem sets in an 8 week course (for long courses). 16 lectures meant 3 sets, 12 lectures meant 2. I never heard of a college doing more than 2 students in a supervision.

[exe34]

cue the Harvard graduates tell us they had 5 teachers for 1 student in their tutorials.

A large part of uni is about learning to learn on your own and learning in groups - if everything is spoonfed, it might not be the best training.

[2dvisio]

Tutorials are all but spoon-feeding. Tutors are strongly encouraged not to give just solutions, but actually to teach the approach to solving problems and creating connections with adjacent topics where possible.

[ninalanyon]

We certainly didn't get spoon fed in tutorials at Exeter Uni. in the 1970s!

[2dvisio]

I used to teach tutorials at Keble college (Oxford). Not sure how they were run in Manchester.

Tutorials in Oxford are impressive for me for many reasons: 1. Those teaching were generally of a higher level beyond Ph.D., post docs or professors, all paid, all assessed against an NPS from students, and the performance of the students in exams 2. Tutors are generally teaching more adjacent topics (creating connections), students are challenged to think beyond the assignments (which are generally tough), 3. Tutorials are calibrated and personalised to students and made sure all students are challenged at the right level, I had tutorials where I had to teach 1:2 because the students were excellent and needed a higher level of complexity.

[vmilner]

Video of maths one here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTAUsTZbiZk

[blibble]

2 is the norm for supervisions/tutorials

and having 4 people is very different from 2

[spacedcowboy]

Same, at Imperial in 80’s

[ics]

Unique Selling Point?

[mrcarrot]

yes