Robert G.M. Hausmann

Learning from human tutoring

Human one-to-one tutoring has been shown to be a very effective form of instruction. Three contrasting hypotheses, a tutor-centered one, a student-centered one, and an interactive one could all potentially explain the effectiveness of tutoring. To test these hypotheses, analyses focused not only on the effectiveness of the tutors’ moves, but also on the effectiveness of the students’ construction on learning, as well as their interaction. The interaction hypothesis is further tested in the second study by manipulating the kind of tutoring tactics tutors were permitted to use. In order to promote a more interactive style of dialogue, rather than a didactic style, tutors were suppressed from giving explanations and feedback. Instead, tutors were encouraged to prompt the students. Surprisingly, students learned just as effectively even when tutors were suppressed from giving explanations and feedback. Their learning in the interactive style of tutoring is attributed to construction from deeper and a greater amount of scaffolding episodes, as well as their greater effort to take control of their own learning by reading more. What they learned from reading was limited, however, by their reading abilities.

Observing tutorial dialogues collaboratively: insights about human tutoring effectiveness from vicarious learning.

The goals of this study are to evaluate a relatively novel learning environment, as well as to seek greater understanding of why human tutoring is so effective. This alternative learning environment consists of pairs of students collaboratively observing a videotape of another student being tutored. Comparing this collaboratively observing environment to four other instructional methods-one-on-one human tutoring, observing tutoring individually, collaborating without observing, and studying alone-the results showed that students learned to solve physics problems just as effectively from observing tutoring collaboratively as the tutees who were being tutored individually. We explain the effectiveness of this learning environment by postulating that such a situation encourages learners to become active and constructive observers through interactions with a peer. In essence, collaboratively observing combines the benefit of tutoring with the benefit of collaborating. The learning outcomes of the tutees and the collaborative observers, along with the tutoring dialogues, were used to further evaluate three hypotheses explaining why human tutoring is an effective learning method. Detailed analyses of the protocols at several grain sizes suggest that tutoring is effective when tutees are independently or jointly constructing knowledge: with the tutor, but not when the tutor independently conveys knowledge.

Do Radical Discoveries Require Ontological Shifts

Abstract: The theoretical stance explicated in this chapter assumes that scientific discoveries often require that the problem-solver (either the scientist or the inventor) re-conceptualizes the problem in a way that crosses ontological categories. Examples of the highest level of ontological categories are ENTITIES, PROCESSES, and MENTAL STATES. Discoveries might be explained as the outcome of the process of switching the problem representation to a different ontological category. Examples from contemporary and the history of science will be presented to support this radical ontological change hypothesis.

Collaborative Dialog While Studying Worked-out Examples

Self-explaining is a beneficial learning strategy for studying worked-out examples because it either supplies missing information through the generation of inferences or because it provides a mechanism for repairing flawed mental models. Although self-explanation is generated with the purpose of helping the individual, is it also helpful to produce explanations in a collaborative setting? Can individuals help each other infer missing information or repair their flawed mental models collaboratively? To find out, we coded the dialog from dyads collaboratively studying examples and contrasted it with individuals studying examples alone. The results suggest that dyads were more likely to attempt to reconcile the examples with their attempted solutions, and avoid shallow processing of examples through paraphrasing.