Dale Havill (DaleH@charles.cc.md.us)
Tue, 19 Jan 1999 10:22:55 -0500
Date: Tue, 19 Jan 1999 10:22:55 -0500 From: Dale Havill <DaleH@charles.cc.md.us> Subject: [ifets] Computer tutoring
Greetings,
Lepper et al. did a study on how to model people who excelled in tutoring
("Motivational Techniques of Expert Human Tutors: Lessons for the Design
of Computer-Based Tutors", in Computers as Cognitive Tools edited by Lajoie
& Derry). They noted that "Implicit in the design of many current computer tutors
is . . . a purely cognitive analysis of teaching . . . the student is seen as
possessing limited, and often systematically erroneous, information . . . [and] the
tutor's remaining job would seem to be to provide the information necessary to
disabuse the student of his or her wrong ideas. . . . Such a stance contrasts
sharply with that of expert human tutors . . . our best tutors appear to devote at
least as much time and attention to issues of motivation and affect as they do to
issues of information and cognition. Especially when working with remedial
students these tutors frequently describe their greatest challenge not as one of
deciding what the child needs to be taught, but as one of deciding how to convey
what does need to be taught in a manner that will not further discouage or distress
these learners."
Perhaps someone can comment on whether these assertions apply as well to adult learners.
Lepper et al. suggest an analysis of tutoring that includes two complementary diagnostic
models--one cognitive and one affective. They conclude from their interviews of expert
tutors, including the tutors watching and commenting on their own videotaped tutoring
sessions, that there are four critical characteristics of excellent tutoring: 1) promoting confidence,
2) setting an optimal level of challenge, 3) evoking curiousity, and 4) helping the student
establish a sense of control. These seem to be a rather tall order for an intelligent tutorial
system (perhaps on the order of a 'holodeck').
Dale Havill, Ph.D. Educational Psychology
Charles County Community College
CCCC Learning Assistance Center
8730 Mitchell Road, P.O. Box 910
La Plata, MD 20646-0910
301/934-2251 x7125 DaleH@charles.cc.md.us
"Let us all hang together, or we shall all hang separately."
--Benjamin Franklin
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