Ths morning, befroe going to attend degree ceremonies at 1200 and 1530, I conducted two 'revision tutorials' for my final year class.  I have had 36 students taking my module this semester but I last saw them on Friday 8 December, and all the teaching to that point had been in a small number of lectures and a large number of very diverse group exercises.  The 2 hour exam for the module (to add to the project for which one-third of the module marks are already in the bag) is not until 24 January - that means almost 7 weeks between the end of formal teaching and the exam.

A couple of years ago I decided to offer optional one hour tutorial slots during the early part of January, with no more than 4 students to sign up for each slot.  They would be in my room, and each would be built round the considreation of some past questions on aspects of the course.  Last year I offered students the chance to attend 2 such tutorials, but I had fewer students then.  This year I have had to limit it to a potential one tutorial each - and even then it has proved hard to squeeze nine tutorials into my schedule over a two week period.  So far I have held three.

I'm not sure who has been the greatest beneficiary.  The students who have been involved have all commented at the end that they feel more confident about how to approach the exam - in particular in terms of the balance between structrue and detail in exam essays, the necessity for supportive evidence, the desirablitity of considering alternative scenarios in answers asking for thinking on likely future developments, and a number of other points.

But I have been hugely stimulated by the discussions as well.  And I regret not doing more small group teaching - ideally tutorials.  My experience is that the questions and issues raised by undergraduate students often force me to rethink my own explanations for particular phenomena.  The students won't accept half-articulated assumptions and challenge my own ideas.  So today I have been rethinking with them various aspects of policies to combat social exclusion in European cities, 'ethnic cleansing' at the level of urban neighbourhoods and former Yugoslavia, and  Angela Merkel's views on the failure of multiculturalism in Germany.  In each case I think I have learned as much as the students.