למידה, אינטרנט ... ומה שביניהם

Fryer’s research found that the tutoring – pairing one tutor with two students – was extremely effective, equating to between five and nine extra months in school.

If computer-based tutoring could get anywhere CLOSE to the effect of human tutoring, of course we’d propose computer tutoring! Much, much cheaper. And computer tutoring [is] so durned hot right now.

Houston created a natural experiment. Only 6th and 9th graders got MATCH-style human tutoring, and that’s where scores rose. Kids in every other grade got computer tutoring, along with a longer day and different teachers, yet test scores didn’t move that much.

Computers are great for helping people learn what they want to learn. They’re not particularly good at getting someone to learn something they do not want to learn. For that, you need very skilled people (teachers and tutors) who can build relationships, use that to generate order and effort from kids, and then turn that effort into learning. A computer needs to start on “third base” — take effort and flip that into learning.

Fryer reported that over 7,000 students were enrolled in nine schools, and that all results were based on the sample of students who remained in school long enough to take the spring tests. He did not reveal how many students took those tests. Or if Fryer did, I could not find it.

תוויות: בלוגים, למידה, שימוש בבתי ספר