Oxford Tutorials for College Prep

Oxford Tutorial Service offers college preparation tutorials over the internet in Latin, Great Books, Logic, Rhetoric, C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien and Shakespeare.  These subjects follow the classical approach to education, sometimes called the Trivium, which emphasizes learning the basic skills of Grammar (through the study of Latin), Dialectic (through the study of Logic), and Rhetoric.   The Trivium (Lat., a place where three roads meet) constituted the first three academic disciplines of university study ("liberal arts") in the Middle Ages.  The tutorials aim to teach students the skills of thinking and learning-how to-learn, and the history of the ideas that have shaped our culture. 

Oxford is dedicated not only to the idea of classical Christian education but also to promoting and furthering it through the use of low-cost internet technologies available to most families, individuals and small private schools. Families and schools with limited financial and teacher resources can supplement their present programs inexpensively with the classical tutorials offered over the internet. 

Oxford's tutorials are offered to a wide range of students, including adults in continuing education, graduate students, and high school students preparing for college.  Oxford's tutorials provide guidance for the self-motivated student who understands that the real work of learning takes place in his or her own study time, with a book and a pencil in hand, and an active mind. Participants in Oxford's tutorials, both instructor and pupil, constitute a body of followers of classical education. 

How the Tutorials are Conducted

Oxford's online tutorials are live once-a-week sessions of one to two hours each, in which the students and tutor discuss the material being studied, go over the students' work, and preview the work for the next week. Using the conferencing software, the students and tutor log in to a server address at the stated time for the tutorial and then are able to communicate by talking, typing, and occasionally using other means of communicating such as the collaborative whiteboard and collaborative web browsing to map sites, image collections, online museums, etc. 

The tutorials are supported by web pages for each class which contain all information necessary for that class. These pages list the course outline, reading and writing assignments and other work, announcements relevant to that class, and additional resources for the students to pursue.  The student has access at all times to the class page.  In addition, the students and tutor use e-mail regularly for announcements, turning in written work, etc. 

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