Tutoring Techniques in Algebra

McArthur, David J.; Stasz, Cathleen; Zmuidzinas, Mary

doi:10.1207/s1532690xci0703_2

Cited by 95 publications

(55 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…The likelihood of tutors giving negative feedback to a student's contribution was .00, .03, .00, and .05 for complete, partial, vague, and error-ridden answers, respectively. This result is compatible with McArthur et al (1990), so it is probably a general phenomenon in this culture that tutors are reluctant to give negative feedback on students' errors and poor answers.…”

Section: Resul~t and Discussionsupporting

confidence: 66%

“…The top questioning goal of the tutor was particularly pervasive. Tutors frequently used a "syllabus" (i.e., script, list of questions) that quided questioninq in a top down fashion and that exposed anticipated problematic concepts (see also McArthur et al, 1990;Putnam, 1987). The students were grilled and evaluated on this list of questions; the tutor had preformulated ideas on what good answers were.…”

Section: Resul~t and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Unfortunately, however, there are very few studies which have carefully examined the process of tutoring (McArthur, Stasz, & Zmuidzinas, 1990;Putnam, 1987) so it is unclear why there is such an advantage. Perhaps students ask more questions in tutoring sessions and thereby correct their knowledge deficits.…”

Section: Ifmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Questioning Mechanisms During Complex Learning

Graesser¹

1992

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Section: Resul~t and Discussionsupporting

confidence: 66%

Section: Resul~t and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Questioning Mechanisms During Complex Learning

Graesser¹

1992

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“…We call this strategy the concrete articulation strategy (Gluck, 1999. McArthur et al, (1990) also observed that human tutors often used what he called curriculum scripts and micro-plans, which often involved a series of questions designed to remediate particular difficulties. We use VanLehn's term for these scripts, "knowledge construction dialogs", which emphasizes the fact that that we are trying to build a tutor that encourages students to build their own knowledge by less often telling them a hint and more often asking them a question.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Intelligent Tutoring System Incorporating a Model of an Experienced Human Tutor

Heffernan

Koedinger

2002

Intelligent Tutoring Systems

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Abstract. Symbolization is the ability to translate a real world situation into the language of algebra. We believe that symbolization is the single most important skill students learn in high school algebra. We present research on what makes this skill difficult and report the discovery of a "hidden" skill in symbolization. Contrary to past research that has emphasized that symbolization is difficult due to both comprehension difficulties and the abstract nature of variables, we found that symbolization is difficult because it is the articulation in the "foreign" language of "algebra". We also present Ms. Lindquist, an Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS) designed to carry on a tutorial dialog about symbolization. Ms. Lindquist has a separate tutorial model encoding pedagogical content knowledge in the form of different tutorial strategies, which were partially developed by observing an experienced human tutor. We discuss aspects of this human tutor's method that can be modeled well by Ms. Lindquist. Finally, we present an early formative showing that students can learn from the dialogs Ms. Lindquist is able to engage student in. Ms. Lindquist has tutored over 600 students at www.AlgebraTutor.org.

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“…Somewhat surprisingly, the tutoring advantage does not appear to be attributable to the tutors level of expertise (Graesser & Person, 1994) or the familiarity of the participating parties (McArthur, Stasz, & Zmuidzinas, 1990;Siler & VanLehn, 2005). Instead, the advantage of tutoring may be attributed to the opportunity it presents for students to ask questions (Graesser & Person, 1994), the intensity of the interaction (McArthur, Stasz, & Zmuidzinas, 1990), and the cues from tutors that maximize the motivation to learn (Lepper, Aspinwall, & Mumme, 1990). Of key importance is the finding that tutoring sessions do not generally embody a large set of the elements of idealized instruction.…”

Section: Tutoringmentioning

confidence: 99%