A tutorial is used to teach material. More interactive and specific than a book or a lecture; a tutorial seeks to teach by example and supply the information to complete a certain task.
Depending on the context a tutorial can take one of many forms, ranging from a set of instructions to complete a task to an interactive problem solving session (usually in academia).
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In British academic parlance, a tutorial is a small class of one, or only a few, students, in which the tutor (a lecturer or other academic staff member) gives individual attention to the students. The tutorial system at Oxford and Cambridge is fundamental to methods of teaching at those universities, but it is by no means peculiar to them; Heythrop College (University of London), for instance, also offers a tutorial system with one on one teaching. It is rare for newer universities in the UK to have the resources to offer individual tuition; six to eight (or even more) students is a far more common tutorial size. At Cambridge, a tutorial is known as a supervision.
In some Canadian universities, such as the University of Waterloo or the University of Toronto, a tutorial refers to something more like a recitation in an American university, that is, a class of between 12-18 students that is supplemental to a large lecture course, which gives students the opportunity to discuss the lectures and/or additional readings in smaller groups. These tutorials are often led by graduate students, normally known as "Teaching Assistants" (TAs), though it is not unknown for the primary instructor of a course, even if a full professor, to take a tutorial. At Princeton University, these tutorials are known as preceptorials and are led by preceptors. Woodrow Wilson developed the preceptorial system, intending it to be the main form of teaching.
In Australian and New Zealand universities, a tutorial (colloquially called a tute) is a class of 10–30 students. Such tutorials are very similar to the Canadian system, although tutorials are usually led by honours or postgraduate students, known as 'tutors'.
At the two campuses of St. John's College, U.S. and a few other American colleges with a similar version of the Great Books program, a "tutorial" is a class of 12 - 16 students who meet regularly with the guidance of a tutor. The tutorial focuses on a certain subject area (e.g. mathematics tutorial, language tutorial) and generally proceeds with careful reading of selected primary texts and working through associated exercises (e.g., demonstrating a Euclid proof or translating ancient Greek poetry). Since formal lectures do not play a large part in the St. John's College curriculum, the tutorial is the primary method by which certain subjects are studied. However, at St. John's the tutorial is considered ancillary to the seminar, in which a slightly larger group of students meets with two tutors for broader discussion of the particular texts on the seminar list.
Some US colleges, such as Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, offer a tutorials almost identical in structure to that of an Oxbridge tutorial. At Williams, students in tutorials typically work in pairs alongside a professor and meet weekly, alternately presenting position papers or critiques of their partner's paper.
Internet computer tutorials can take the form of a screen recording, a written document (either online or downloadable), or an audio file, where a person will give step by step instructions on how to do something.
Tutorials usually have the following characteristics:
While many writers refer to a mere list of instructions or tips as a tutorial, this usage can be misleading.
In computer-based education, a tutorial is a computer program whose purpose it is to assist users in learning how to use (parts of) a software product such as an office suite or any other application, operating system interface, programming tool, or video game. There are two kinds of software tutorials: movie tutorials that the user views; and interactive tutorials where the user follows on-screen instructions (and—in some cases—watches short instruction movies), whereupon he/she does the tutorial exercises and receives feedback depending on his/her actions. Some computer based tutorials can also be put up on the Web.